For The Dreamers, Laid To Rest
by A Trashbag Writes
Summary: "So. You found your dragon rider after all." he says. "I found him, actually." she corrects. [A story in which songs must be whispered, sheep should behave, and two old enemies will find themselves back inside the dragon's den.] Sequel to 'Of Berk And Both Their Tactless Tricks'
1. Prologue

Hello, my lovely, wonderful readers! Well, I guess it makes more sense to say welcome back to most of you...  
But anyway...Here it is!

*cue horrified screaming*

A sequel!

I've been stressing and stressing and stressing over this FOREVER. You probably know how I am with my writing breakdowns and all by now...  
BUT.  
I hope(?) that i've finally pieced together something decent for you all. Starting with a short snippet of a prologue in which we travel back in time by flashback about 20-ish years? I'm thinking this story will be fairly concise, but the updates will come a LOT slower than they did with the first one...Still, I hope you enjoy! And as always, if there's a problem, let me know! I'm sorry if this is confusing or just bad or sldjlbfsjd and I know I don't usually write this type of implausible crap, but since this is based off a Dreamwork's movie hopefully you can forgive me this once?...I don't even know, but...  
Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy everybody! And remember, I love you all!

No, really. I do.

* * *

 **Prologue**

* * *

 _It's something like a heartbeat._  
 _Tense. Slow. Heavy- each living pulse joined to the next as it builds and grows, reaching, rising, until it's a constant drumming leading up to the inevitable moment where it will hail in something remarkably new; a brilliant sunrise, a deep gasping breath, an awe-inspiring beauty..._

 _But for now, it's still just the beginning.  
A dull rhythm- two, actually, in the dead of night on opposite ends of a far-reaching sea, two families as different as the dark of night and the burning hot white of the stars that hang over the great big, silent world._

 _Tha-thump...tha-thump...tha-thump..._

 _Hearts drum all around.  
_ _And it's a very special night, you see.  
_ _Terrifying and dreadful, yes. But oh, it's wonderful too._

 _And the first of it starts from a quaint little place tucked ever-so-safely between the green, green hills of an island far away.  
_ _An island called Berk._

 _Here, there's a fire burning in the corner of their cottage and their hands are clasped tightly as she strains and pushes, face damp with the effort of baring new life._  
 _Women, **her** friends, are bustling around everywhere in the cramped space of the wooden little hut, but **he** remains, always, at her side. On bended knee, in fact, keeping watch even when Gothi's tried to shoo him out, and he's murmuring what words of love he can, even although the insides of his broad, sturdy chest feel as if they will burst with a thousand different feelings all wonderful and terrible at once._  
 _And oh, he wishes.  
He wishes he could shout it out to the entire island! But for now, it remains a panicked, magical mantra, recited to anyone who can bear to hear it for only about the millionth time in the span of 9 months._  
 _"A father._.. _I'm going to be a father."  
Tears leak out from the crinkled corners of his kind eyes and spill out onto his full, dark beard.  
And yet, he laughs.  
When the others see this, so do they.  
So does **she**.  
And then, cloaked in a a hand-sewn quilt of his own creation, patched a hideously bright orange and a crimson red and an emerald green, amongst other colors, they smile and they cry, and they wait to endure the coming seconds together._

 _Tha-thump..._ _Tha-thump..._ _Tha-thump..._

 _The second of it happens hundreds and hundreds of leagues away.  
And to reach this sullen place, one would have to conquer quite a number of very **un** conquerable tasks.  
One. Tame a turning, untamable sea, frothing with salt foam, and so cold the mere spray can turn the entire body icy numb.  
Two. Pass __forested islands settled atop rocky cliffs so high up only dragons, fearsome beasts that they are, could possibly reach above the white blanket of mist stretching as far as the eye can see.  
Three. C_ _ross an endless stretch of sponge dirt and moss and plants, some deadly poisonous, until that green slowly turns to the muddled ugly off-white of the beginnings of snow, until that ugly muddled off-white slowly becomes an infinite white, until that infinite white becomes the solid opaque blue and you find yourself surrounded by nothing but enormous, gigantic, titanic glaciers instead._

 _And for what?_  
 _To reach the place still just beyond those glaciers._  
 _The farthest corner of the known Viking world where even the waters are black and the only sight for miles around is the wreckage of countless more unfortunate ships rising up out of the blackness, like the pointed teeth of a nameless monster._

 _And yet, this is exactly the place that the second **he** and the second **she** know that they have to be._

 _And here, of course, things are quite a bit different than they are in Berk.  
Here, it's all very hush-hush. A matter of danger, of secrecy, and there's a cold sense of dread and danger lurking around every corner, even despite how far away they've sailed, and the only sound on the wind is the creaking of the ship as __he paces anxiously outside the captain's cabin with all of his men, only able to listen as she screams and cries from within, a bought goodwife from the last village the only one to offer any comfort.  
_ _He's never been the particularly religious sort.  
In his line of work, that type of nonsense simply had no place and he has no memory of his life before he'd started working in the service of a veritable tyrant._  
 _Even so, he prays to the gods now. For perhaps the very first time in his life.  
He pleads with every ounce of his being that things will turn out right, and despite everything in him that tells him this is wrong, he knows he doesn't regret a single one of the unforgivable sins that have led him here.  
Not yet._

 _"I can't..." he hears her cry from within._  
 _He rests his hand against the door, aching to see her._

 _And across the sea, "I love you..."_  
 _He clutches his wife's hand tightly to his chest._

 _"Almost there..." he mutters._

 _"It's nearly over...!"_

 _"One last push!"_

 _"You can do it!"_

 _"Now!"_

 _And then-  
_  
 _The entire world takes a great big sigh of relief all together._

...

 _The drums, they cease._

 _The pain is gone._

 _And instead, there's just a long moment of blissed silence suspended in the air before the midwives take over and the two newborns are made, at the very same moment, to open their mouths and breathe that all-important first breath..._

 _Only, after that, there is a new kind of trouble altogether, of course._

 _"Oh, gods...She certainly can cry, can't she?" Mrs. Ack says with a frown._  
 _"At least we know she's healthy." Valka laughs._  
 _As the other women tsk and fawn over the baby_ _, she gasps, lies back, feeling spent all at once, but when she sees her husband carefully lift the squirming little being in his arms and smile, everything seems right as rain again.  
_ _He steps closer. There are fresh tears hanging in his beard now and she manages a weak laugh, even in her state as the other women politely bow out to give them a moment of privacy.  
_ _"Look at her...Our daughter." he murmurs proudly, once it's just the two of them.  
_ _His deep voice rumbles affectionately and, with more care than he's handled anything in his life before, he takes the child to her.  
_ _She's pressing her lips gently to the little thing's forehead when he reaches into a leather pouch at his waist and sprinkles a light rain of pink down upon her.  
_ _The baby laughs, a ridiculously infectious burble, and clutches at the falling petals, but the mother only tsks weakly.  
_ _"Don't drown the poor thing in them already."  
_ _The husband chuckles, but brushes a pink petal away from the baby's tiny little dimpled cheek.  
_ _"Beautiful." he simply murmurs. Then, "Beautiful!" he booms joyously, feeling it all at once.  
_ _"Hm...She's actually rather ugly, I think..." she muses.  
_ _But he only laughs because her words may be harsh, but her eyes are softer than he's ever seen them and he knows by now, that when big moments come, she falls into her old habit of speaking in opposites.  
_ _"Know what you want to call her yet?" he asks, pressing his lips to her temple.  
At that she nods, her lips quirking up to form a strong smile.  
"I do. A good name for a good daughter..." she murmurs._

 _"A son... **My** son..."_  
 _His voice is thick and low. Still controlled as ever, but just this once, there's a touch of softness to it as he stares down at the tiny, restless little thing in his arms. He has no hope of understanding how to handle this thing...this child, but he can't quite bear to let it go, either, and it's got just his same strong brow and head of dark hair, but with beautiful eyes, thank Odin._  
 _And she- she looks up at him from where she is, so thin and frail, with those very same beautiful eyes and smiles.  
"He's beautiful isn't he? Looks just like you already..." she murmurs, in her careful, delicate way._  
 _He doesn't know quite what to say to that so he merely nods, but it's all fine and well to her. She didn't fall in love with him for his honeyed words after all._  
 _"What shall we name him?" she asks again._  
 _And at this, he finally cracks a smile, a very rare thing for him to do, as he sits on the edge of the bed and passes the child over.  
"We'll name him after you." he answers._  
 _"After me?" she echoes._  
 _He nods.  
"You can't be serious."  
But then, she nearly laughs.  
Of course he's serious. How could he ever be anything but?_  
 _For a moment, she considers arguing the horrible idea. She detests her name- thinks it sounds more like a man's than anything- but then again, maybe that makes it just the perfect choice.  
She grasps his large, weathered hand in her dainty one, and when his blue eyes meet her amber ones, "My name it is, then..." she agrees, for the exact same reason he suggested it to begin with._  
 _And that reason is this:_  
 _Because if ever their secret should get out, if ever he should lose either child or lover, he and she both hope that at least one half of his world will remain.  
"Your name, it is..." he repeats._

 _And so, the two families speak the next part out loud together._  
 _"Our little son."  
_ _"Our little daughter."_

 _"...Our little-"_

 _"Althea." - "Eret."_

 _And then, after another few good hours of marveling; of fawning and crooning and praying and love, with one last kiss, the two newborns are laid down to dream away the rest of the night in their respective cribs: hers, carved with great care out of the sturdiest pine, his crafted hurriedly out of a washed-out grey piece of driftwood._

 _Their fathers tuck them in._  
 _Whisper 'Goodnight', then return to their lovers' side to settle down after all that's passed and changed their lives.  
_

 _But as they and, indeed, the rest of the world slowly drift off by comfort of night, all throughout the very first hours of their lives, baby Althea stays awake. And baby Eret does the same._

 _But curiously enough, the little ones don't cry..._

 _No..._  
 _Instead, they look out at the moon, as bright and beautiful as the sprinkle of stars reflected in their wide eyes, until they both, by chance, catch notice of the very same distant star and they follow it as it trembles and quivers, and then finally,  
it falls- _

_Right as it does, Althea turns her head and looks East._  
 _And Eret turns his head and looks West._

 _When they do, they're startled at first._  
 _They don't know why, b_ _ut...there seems to be someone else sharing in what they'd each thought was their own special, magical night._

 _They aren't alone._  
 _And, oh, when they're older, they forget that, of course._  
 _For awhile._

 _But for now, Eret and Althea cautiously stretch out their opposite arms, tiny hands reaching and grasping for some mysterious something; for some mysterious some **one**.  
_ _On the opposite end of an unexplored world._

 _And as a brilliant streak of white shoots across the navy sky, baby Althea laughs._

 _And baby Eret listens._

* * *

Don't worry! Eret and Althea will be back in real-time next chapter!  
Until then, I hope this was...somewhat tolerable...Ugh...


	2. For The Children, All Alone Part I

_Hope you enjoy!_  
 _I really don't know what i'm even doing, if that hasn't become clear enough from my other stories and just sdjfbalskdjfbsdjk..._  
 _I'm so sorry ya'll. I'm seriously just...?_  
 _If there's anything you're just not sure about or you're just not a fan of, let me know! (Nicely please. Because i'm a delicate flower. And I cry. Easily. A lot...)  
But yeah...Oh lawd...I can't believe i'm doing this to myself again..._

 _Quick suggestion! My writing seems 50% less crappy when you listen to the 2nd movie's soundtrack while you read.  
Oh, and a happy Christmas to all of you lovely people!_

* * *

"Come on, Skullcrusher! Keep on at that pace and we'll miss out on the match, boy!"

Eret, Son of Eret, former dragon trapper, now honorary rider and member of the stubborn, stoic village Berk, laughs as he vaults deftly over a fallen log, lands on his feet with a solid thud, and then continues dashing on downward through the moss and the brush and the forest towards the stadium, the beginning of Berk's brisk winter air stinging his cheeks as he goes.

It's been one year.  
One whole terrifying, wonderful year since the last time he'd been up and down this mountain with only his dragon at his side. And the thing is, he'd been quite a...different man then.  
He'd been a black sheep- soiled hands, stained name, with no earthly idea that he could or, indeed, would ever get to... _ **here**_.

But, oh, the journey's been lovely.

And now?  
Well, now...

"Just this last stretch!" Eret shouts jubilantly.  
And the overwhelming sense of simple life in his lungs makes his entire body thrum with energy.

Come rain or shine, dragon and rider have been training every morning all this spring and summer.  
And today's dragon race, it's got his entire life staked on it.

Well, that may be a bit dramatic, he supposes with a chuckle.  
Most people wouldn't call a wager for a week's worth of stable cleaning duty a 'life-or-death' stake.  
Then again, Eret thinks, just now recalling the sheer amount of Skullcrusher's waste alone, some might...  
He grimaces at the very thought, but, just as suddenly, he cheers again, knowing for sure that the deplorable task will be going to some other unfortunate viking this time, and he will be the one to decide who.

After all, he is determined to win.

And with _**her**_ as his former mentor, he knows that he can.  
With her, he can do anything.  
By gods, he'd fought tooth and nail to earn the right to say so.

And now, because of his persistence, because of her grace, here they are: just moments before he'll, once again, fight for even more of that favor so, weeks down the line, when he asks her a question, she'll grant him one more undeserved kindness...

One that is worth at least as much to him as her forgiveness had been, if not infinitely more.

And this time, he knows a clumsy, self-composed song won't be enough.  
Oh, it would for her, he's sure. Because she is... _ **she**_ , and is used to giving so much. So now it's time for her to _**get**_ \- to get everything she deserves, even the things she hates to admit she wants.  
Celebration. Festivity.  
And just a touch of dramatic flair.

For Eret, however, that means that for the next fortnight or so, he'll need a distraction while he groups their friends together and pieces together some kind of plan.  
And so, in the end, it all, very unfortunately, rides on making her clean up piles and piles of dragon dung.  
He hopes she'll understand at least, when the reason comes to light...

Because the reason?...  
Gods, the reason.

He can't even think it out in straight words, and at the mere, vague idea of what's to come, there's a lurch in his stomach.

But, Eret, oh, he loves it and feeling another surge of strength pulse through his blood with the nerves, he pushes on, shouting for a dragon that has fallen so far behind by now, it is completely absent from view.

"Skullcrusher!"

He spares a single glance behind him and from there, comes a dissatisfied snort.

The ground shakes as an enormous, horned beast, reflecting a hundred different shades of green and orange and red, comes tramping along, charging, breathing heavy as he tries to catch up with his rider.

Eret laughs once again and he's just about to feel sorry and call it all quits when suddenly, the enormous horned creature lunges for him and-

"Argh!"

Eret finds himself hoisted up and flung over the creature backwards with the help of one very sharp horn.

Wonderfully enough, this doesn't scare him anymore.

And instead, as solid ground grows further and further from his view, Eret merely shifts his body over and settles in the saddle proper with a grin.  
"Alright, old boy. I s'pose we can skip a run just once." he says. "But don't think you're getting off tomorrow!"

They lift and push into the open, endless blue and Eret let's out a whoop at the top of his lungs and they _**fly**_.  
Skullcrusher loops and he dives and he darts into the very sun and oh, it's a kind of freedom Eret can't believe he's ever had to live without...  
The air is so sweet and the feelings are so real and it's-...  
Why, it's bigger than life...

It's still only the second best feeling in the world.

The first is what comes now:  
When Skullcrusher finally touches down just in front of the keep beneath the arena.  
When Eret dismounts, cheeks flushed, still breathless and high on adrenaline.  
When standing there waiting, with her back turned towards him, is the familiar figure of her.

Even from behind, he recognizes the dark hair, the fur hood, the relaxed stance...And there's the dragon, too, of course.  
The beautiful black Nightfury, the one that senses his presence before its rider does and begins hopping and rolling about excitedly in the dirt beside her.

At the commotion, she starts to turn too, but Eret grins and with a confident swagger in his steps, he catches her waist before she can for the one thing he _**does** _ loves most- a simple kiss.

He tugs her flush against him, feels her blush, the romantic music swells and then-...

"Gah!"  
He topples over backward in the grass.

That...That isn't her face.

"Eret." she rasps in greeting.

And that isn't her voice.

Something is wrong.  
Very, very wrong, but this stranger only smiles at him serenely, and that is bad but even _**worse**_ is when the unfamiliar face in front of him begins to shift and change and morph from one unknown into another and it's beefy and stubbly and black-haired and then thin and long and then blonde and then dark and scarred with cold eyes and then it's all of those things and then none of them and then-

At once, it stops changing altogether.

Slowly, a thin body, a new face, a combination of all the ones he knows, rises into being before it hunches over and sticks itself right into his personal space. And...

"Eret! Hello?" a terrifying harmony of five voices shout.

He shrinks, cowered on the ground.

But the stranger frowns, eyes glinting mad and only goes in closer.

"Eret?"

"..."

"Eret."

"..."

"Eret! Can you get a grip and WAKE UP ALREADY!"

 _Smack!_

Eret, Son of Eret, jolts awake with a violent gasp, a cold sweat running down the defined muscles of his bare back.  
But, when he finally gains enough sense and he squints around and sees the familiar interior of Althea's home, he realizes it was all only a dream and sighs.

Well that was terrifying.

Absently, his hand passes over the empty sheets beside him, still warm to the touch from another person's presence.  
And then, he finally starts to smile.

It was terrifying, but not real.

He laughs for getting so worked up.

And then, now that his morning scare has passed and he's gotten in a few good chuckles, he's groggy and tired and dazed once again and he falls back in bed with a soft groan _,_ rubbing at his mysteriously smarting forehead.

 _..._

Smarting forehead?

...

Oh no...  
A morning call as rude as this one can only mean one thing. But right now, he'd rather just sleep in and so, perhaps a little distastefully, his eyes peek open again and flicker to the bedside and-

"Aghhh!"

He hurriedly lurches back, and sure enough, five very familiar faces crowd his vision, each of them grinning cheekily and tittering amongst themselves as if they're in on some big secret.  
Immediately, Eret grabs for the quilt and yanks it up to his neck. And not just because he's basically naked.  
(Goodness knows they've barged in on him enough over the months and they've seen all this before.)

It's just, _**this**_ time, there are a few...rather telling red marks on his neck and shoulder that he'd prefer they not know about.  
He's just beginning to redden at the thought of them, but thankfully, they don't notice.

They're all much too excited about something else, in fact. And right as if on cue, Astrid Hofferson herself pushes between a snickering Tuffnut and Ruffnut, plants her hands on her hips, and chimes with a grin, "Today's a special day, Eret!"

His dream- really, just a memory of the week before (well, minus the chilling end, at least) comes back to him full force just then, and a breathtaking spark lights in his chest when he remembers.

Still, Eret tries to seem perfectly calm when he jokes,  
"Special enough to disturb an innocent man's rest?"

"Uh. Special enough for us not to mention the garden that's blooming love bites all over your man chest." Ruffnut mutters, snickering under-her-breath.  
Tuffnut mimes vomiting and Fishlegs giggles behind a dainty hand and Snotlout only waggles his eyebrows and flashes Eret a thumbs-up.

So they'd seen after all.  
Eret blushes. All the way from his ears down to his bare bottom down to toes.  
But ignoring all of that, Astrid only sighs testily,  
"Special enough," she says pointedly. "to motivate us to take time out of our busy schedules to help you. So come on, get dressed already!"  
She gives him a spirited laugh and tosses him his shirt, which had somehow last night, ended up on the floor clear across the room.

Gods, Eret thinks in embarrassment. The room is littered with evidence.

Still, he hopes that Astrid, at least, won't comment on it, and he almost thinks he'll get his wish, too, as she waves the rest over to wait with her in the living room calling, "We've got a lot to do, Eret!" over her shoulder.

But then, she stops short.  
And the viking side-eyes him and can't help but seem to crack a grin as she adds, "Although, I think you might have _**done**_ enough already."

At that, the surreptitious giggles erupt into full-on peals and snorts of laughter and as the five of his friends roll around and slap each other and guffaw out loud, Eret can only sit there and try to fight the blush in his cheeks.

But when the laughing doesn't let up...

"Alright, alright." he says over them. "I think we've delved into my private life quite enough for one day, thank you very much. And- and anyway, it isn't what you think."

"Sure. Whatever you say, Eret."  
Astrid shoots a wink as she leaves.

"You might wanna put _**on**_ some clothes next time?"  
Tuffnut snorts as he goes.

"Or don't. 'Don't' works just fine for me."  
Ruffnut grins. She blows him a kiss.

"Wha- But, babe, I lift _**yak**_ for you." Snotlout whines, trailing after. He flexes. "Bam. Oh, yeah. See that? All muscle."

"Yeah? Well, _**I**_ got you that new saddle you wanted." Fishlegs boasts, body-checking Snotlout out of his way. "It'll add plus one to speed! And, with tons of convenient pockets for storage, you..."

Once they're gone and the door is shut behind them, Eret groans.

"Gods take me now..." he mutters aloud, burying his face in his hands.

But then, he begins to laugh instead.

Because he _**had**_ , in fact, won the dragon race of sometime past.  
And for forcing his friends for awhile to think and talk of nothing but today? A little teasing isn't unbearable punishment.  
As a dragon trapper, he'd certainly endured worse.

A lot worse...

As he pulls his old woolen vest over his head, Eret pauses to run a finger over that fading brand, his last reminder of the man he used to be, burned into his chest so long ago.

And there are still times when he is uncertain; times when, in the middle of the night, she must help to convince him of it.  
But that life- with its loneliness, its cruelty, its fear, it is all over now.  
And in its place is...

He glances down at the scar again. Or, more specifically, at the very corner of it, where he remembers the press of her lips, the nip of her teeth, the heat of her breath...

Wait. Stop.  
No.

With a firm shake of his head, Eret catches himself just as he's beginning to grin like a fool, and he resolves to blush about all that later.

Because for now...

It's a very special day.

And he's got very special plans for a very special someone on this very special day.

With one deep breath and another glance at his reflection in the looking glass, he rushes out the bedroom door, only pausing to grab for a pouch he's kept hidden carefully between the mattress for months and months on end. And when he reaches the living room, he looks around at the faces of his friends, straightens his back, and grins, eager for his very brand new adventure.

"Are the lot of you all ready?" he asks.

Five faces grin back.  
And then, they rise one-by-one and march purposefully out into the village to start their new day together.

That's become a normal thing for him, somehow- 'together'.  
As in, 'he' and somebody, anybody, else.

Whether that means he and Hiccup or he and Skullcrusher or he and Snotlout or he and Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Fishlegs or the entire village or all of the above at once.  
And to Eret, finally, this kind of _**not** _ loneliness...Well, it's quite a nice thing after all.  
He thinks _**she**_ would agree.

Speaking of which...

"So. What is it that Gobber's got Althea doing, anyway?..." Eret wonders.

* * *

Althea Cross: a partner, now, in both childish showdowns between village friends, and in mischievous, eccentric antics at home alike, with hair longer, eyes softer, and skin newer, breathes in the biggest lungful of fresh air that she can as she stands and watches over the village that she's somehow come to love so much.

The view is ten times as beautiful as it was a year ago.  
And even though she'd broken the habit of leaving the way she always used to through pure force of willpower, now, there are, every day, new reasons that she feels she'd rather stay.

Starting with her sheep.  
Instead of ten, they number thirteen now and although the newer members of the flock are just as stubborn and gluttonous as the others, Althea's come to appreciate their antics, even in times like these.

Tired as she is from last night's fun, Althea laughs as Mili's little one, plump just like her mother, plods over and bleats at her pointedly, eyes half-lidded in a reproachful stare.

"We're not traveling all the way there today, Ono." Althea chides gently. "The grass here will have to do. I've got to get you back and help Gobber train a few brutes just as defiant and impossible as you in half an hour."

The sheep huffs, but just as its about to enter stage 2 of rebellion, there's an unexpected flapping of heavy, leathery wings and a _woosh_! and a low growl and Ona shuffles away, wide-eyed, to join Ana and Una again.

Althea begins to smile then.  
Because that growl?

It, of course, has come from yet another reason she finds herself here more than gone. Although she may have mixed feelings about reason number 2 going off and spending so much time with someone who isn't her, even if that someone _**is**_ Toothless.

Then again, Althea winces, thinking of her reason number 3 for staying, she supposes it's fair.

Nevertheless...  
"You don't need to scare them quite that badly, you know." Althea says in greeting, turning to face her first and best friend in the world, who is just getting back from a morning flight with their aforementioned beau.

Bloodbiter tilts her head at the disapproval. Then, opens her jaws, and makes a show of-  
 _schlk!_  
-retracting her teeth back into her gums.  
She flashes a charming smile when she's done and Althea laughs.

"Well aren't you the accommodating one today?" she says. "Meeting with Toothless went well, I take it?"

Bloodbiter's scaly, flat head bobs up and down once and, after, she lets out a chirrup, as if to inquire back about her.

Althea blushes at that.  
"Oh...Er. Last night was...fine..." she stammers, squirming. Then, to cover up her embarrassment, she quickly adds, "Except for dinner. Gods, Eret's cooking is still terrible. Don't tell him I said that though."

The dragon, however, isn't falling for the distraction, and Bloodbiter only throws her head back and gives a mischievous, garbling laugh.

"Oh, hush, you." Althea shushes.

But when the dragon's head pops up, affronted, the rider laughs again and with a sigh, she finds a spot in the grass beside the scaly warmth of Bloodbiter's side.

"Alright, fine. It was...nice..." she confesses. "Eret's been acting strangely all week so i'm glad he's okay..."  
Then, Althea turns to her dragon.  
She smiles at her in a gentle way the rider never would have let herself before, and  
"We still missed you and Skullcrusher though." she says.

And the dragon knows that her rider means it.  
So even though she's hardly pleased by the lack of real details regarding the conclusion to the great mystery of Eret's suspicious behavior, Bloodbiter lets it all go.  
She's content with this for now.

Because the dragon knows that even these small glimpses of belonging are things the rider never once thought she could have.  
Welling with a sudden affection, the dragon can't help but watch her rider as she smiles and takes in the view laid out before them. But when Althea catches her, orbs of green unblinking, her cheeks pink in embarrassment at having been caught so unguarded.

Bloodbiter chirps in amusement.

Their old life might be over, but there are still some things that remain the same.

"Come on. Let's get moving." Althea laughs. She pulls to her feet and gives her dragon one last pat on the head.

They walk on.

* * *

 _Not one, but two.  
_ _Two bodies, lying side by side, being pushed out to sea.  
_  
 _Not two, but one._  
 _One boat, one arrow, one fire, shrinking against the horizon._

 _Everyone mourns._

 _But they weren't **theirs.  
** They were **hers.**_  
 _Her parents, her family, her everything._

 _The entire village starts a beautiful, familiar song._  
 _Their voices carry, even through tears of mourning._  
 _But Althea's too terrified to join in._

 _Because she's heard the village tales and she knows how the story goes._

 _Her parents were heroes._  
 _They died to save **her.  
** Does that mean that **she** is the villain? __Or the dragons are?..._

 _The little child Althea, with a blotchy tear-streaked face and a rumpled dress, thinks about that all day long as she stands at Chief Stoic's side with the rest of Berk behind her, watching until the funeral pyre is gone and the skies are black.  
And she keeps thinking as she's led back to the great hall where well-wisher after well-wisher passes by with a condolence full of words too big for her to understand._

 _The night stretches on._  
 _Time spent wrestling with her thoughts is long._

 _But it isn't until this that she finally gets her answer:_  
 _When the official service is done and all the village warriors are milling about, recounting memories and nursing mugs of ale, and she is sitting in the corner, withering._  
 _Because after each and every one of the numerous great deeds are retold (and Althea is just now beginning to understand just how great those deeds really were, how untouchable her parents had once been), everyone's eyes rest just for a second on her._  
 _And with each sip of drink, those eyes get a little more bloodshot and a little more angry and a little more cruel._

 _Little Althea looks all around the room for someone bigger, stronger, kinder to help shield her from the piercing stares, but what does it mean when all the faces she sees are unfriendly ones?..._

 _It means it's her.  
_  
 _The villain is her..._

 _But no..._  
 _If she lets herself believe it then there'll never be a single soul on Berk to take her side, and the only thing she has left in the world is herself.  
She understands that full well now...  
_

 _And so, much, much later, when most heads are passed out drunk on tables and the few that are still drinking are too inebriated to notice, Althea feels too suffocated to stay and so, she braves the terror and tiptoes past the eerily still, corpse-like bodies, swallowing her urge to scream._

 _She makes it to the door, escapes into the night, **breathes**..._

 _And then, she runs home._  
 _She locks herself in- doesn't come out._

 _Not tomorrow or the next day or the next._

* * *

I'm so sorry that this was so...djkxfnbjdn...  
It's pretty slow, I know, but it'll pick up speed later so please try and bear with it for now!


	3. For The Children, All Alone Part II

_*nervous laughter*  
See what I meant when I said the updates would be a lot slower?...Oops.  
Ya'll I am already regretting this. So much...I'm sorry if it's slow right now, but it'll pick up soon! And I apologize if the quality in my writing isn't up to par. I literally don't know what happened? If it's really bad, I will absolutely fix it! I really, really don't want you to feel as though you've wasted the time you've invested in this story and i'm trying my best to make sure that doesn't happen. Just let me know! _

_On a more positive note, i'm already practically crying, guys. Really. I am._  
 _To my amazing readers, thank you so much! You may be few in number, but I appreciate each and every single one of you all and i'm glad to see that some of you are back! Especially you, grumpypirate and I Have Gone Away. And hello to you too, Night Fury15!_ _This one's absolutely for you guys!_

 _Also, hello, hello to any new readers! Thank you for giving my writing a chance and if you decide to stay, welcome to the little family!_

 _(Are the intro messages getting annoying? Sorry, ya'll...)_

* * *

"Pull it up a little higher, Snotlout!" shouts Astrid over the bustling morning activity of the great hall.

At her direction, the aforementioned viking, currently teetering on a precariously tilting balance of wooden stepping stools, straightens his spine up still straighter and just about manages to half-jump and throw his end of a garland of flowers across a high wooden hook lodged into the edge of the ceiling.  
He lands again with a thud and a triumphant grin.

But just then- and before he can even fully wipe the smug grin off his face...

"Wo-woahh...W-woah!..."

The burly viking is teetering. And he's tottering. And then, all of a sudden-  
"Uh-oh. Going down."

 _Fwump!  
_ He crashes to the ground, face first.

"I'm okay..." he calls weakly, lifting a hand in the air.  
Beside him, Tuffnut cackles wickedly.

Astrid doesn't even notice.  
Because, you see, there's much too much to do today and soon, Eret will be gone and it'll all be up to them to pull together the most festive party the island's seen since last year's Thawfest celebration.

And oh, it certainly will be festive.  
Well, or something, anyway.

Because, already, it's proving to look- well, quite mismatched and garish, actually, but maybe that's exactly why it feels so much like home, too. Besides, perhaps overly enthusiastic is better than not at all, Astrid thinks to herself with a laugh, taking just a moment to step back amidst the chaos and look at the brightly painted banners and the strings of flowers and dragon torches all nearly overflowing from the room.

And, of course, really- all of this? It's just formality.  
Althea and Eret act as if they're practically wed already and every villager on Berk knows it.  
Still, the vikings will welcome any opportunity to celebrate, and knowing this, Astrid smiles to herself, wondering at just how much has changed since dragons first touched down on the island; since dragons first touched down ** _really_** and Hiccup had, in that one defining and all-important moment, decided not to kill it.

Well, thoughts for later, she supposes.

Astrid quickly shakes her blonde head and it's back to business because anything and everything would fall apart without her attention, evidently. Even, at times, the very thing that is supposed to be the model of patience and good behavior for all Berkians: the love of her very own life, the village chief.

"Gee, think you could go any slower there, Fishlegs?" Hiccup sighs dryly over from the corner. His arms are crossed as he waits for a certain nervous viking to finish drawing the outline of a dragon on a banner which he is supposed to be coloring in.  
At his show of impatience, however, Fishlegs suddenly throws up his arms, splattering paint everywhere by accident and cries, panicked, "Stop rushing me!"  
"I'm _ **rushing**_ you because you're taking forever!" Hiccup gripes.  
"Well, maybe I wouldn't take forever, if you stopped rushing-"

"Hey! You guys!" Astrid interrupts, stepping between them.

Both vikings glance at her at once and she sighs at their paint-smeared faces.

"Stop fighting. We don't have all day." she says. "Fishlegs, you don't have to draw the individual scales, we're just gonna color over all of them anyway. And Hiccup, just start painting the opposite corner. It's really not that hard, you know."

Under the weight of her stern gaze, they shrink down, obviously sheepish.  
"Sorry..." they mutter together.

And now, with that problem solved, Astrid goes back to checking up on her other charges, ducking through and around a veritable parade of villagers, some rolling in barrels of ale, some carting in their instruments for music, and still others bringing in dish after dish of cured meats, vegetables, cheeses, breads, all to be used for cooking up an extravagant feast to accompany the night's dancing and singing and drinking.

"Looking good there, Ruff!" Astrid says. She flashes her friend a thumbs-up and then, finally, finally, comes full circle around the room to a stop at Eret's side; Eret who is thinking over something much too seriously for her liking and Astrid can just sense another problem in the making.

"Okay. What is it?" she says to him knowingly.

"What? Nothing. I'm- i'm fine!" he insists with a nervous laugh.

There's a loaded pause then, in which Astrid gives him a dead-eyed look.

"Er...Actually, I do have just one...little thing perhaps." Eret concedes finally.  
"Okay. Shoot."  
"...Which of these do you think suits me better?" he asks. "This one, or this one?"  
And from seemingly out of thin air, he holds up an exactly identical red woolen shirt against the one he's currently dressed in and looks at her imploringly with eager amber eyes.

Astrid bursts into a laugh at the seriousness of his expression.  
She can't help it.  
For a man who tries so hard to be suave, he sure does a poor job of it when it comes to something that _ **really** _ matters, and right now, he's practically falling apart.

"Eret, relax, would you? It's gonna be fine!" she promises.  
"I know, I know. Sorry. I just-...I don't want to do anything wrong." the man sighs, running a hand through his dark hair.  
"Well, it's not like you could do any worse than you already have." Astrid says, as if that's some consolation. But then, she continues with "Like, for example, oh, I don't know, nearly telling Althea _**everything**_?", and Eret knows she has a point.

He laughs nervously.  
"Ah. Right..." he mumbles. "Took care of the problem in the end though, didn't I? Was she suspicious? Maybe, but I got her mind off it and-"

"Oh, trust me. I already know you did, Eret." Astrid only laughs, arching a brow at him meaningfully.

And, blushing a deep red, Eret just knows she's thinking of seeing him stark-naked that very morning and his mouth drops and shut numerous times before he can think of how to respond.

But then, just as it comes to him, and he's grinning and about to reveal the juicy bit of gossip he'd heard about her and Hiccup themselves, suddenly-

 _gong, gong, gonnggg!_

 _..._

From somewhere over the hills, the village time piece (one of Hiccup's more recent innovations) rings out signaling three hours past noon and a brief hush falls throughout the entire the room.

But that lasts only a second before all heads turn one-by-one in Eret's direction.  
The man at the center of everyone's attention swallows, nervous all over again at their eyes like spotlights, and then, Hiccup is suddenly at his side with a smile.

"It's time, Eret." he says, clapping a hand to the man's shoulder.

"Go and get her." Astrid adds.

Eret only takes a deep breath and rubs his hands together anxiously in response.  
Because this is it...  
No going back now.

"Wish me luck." he breathes to his friends.

But, "Good luck!" comes the full-bodied chorus of all the villagers in return.

Eret blinks around the room in shock, first, at the unexpected participants in what he'd thought had been a private conversation just between friends.

But then again, perhaps it's just that he and Althea finally have more friends than they've realized.

Eret laughs heartily at the thought.  
And when he speaks again, this time, it's to everyone in the room.

"Gods willing, this dragon rider'll return with a wife!" he booms.

Silly grins and teasing cheers all rise up in reply and follow him all the way out the door. And as he makes his way down the steps and towards the dragon stadium, Eret whistles a merry, merry tune.

* * *

 _Every day, it's hard work for the young, strapping lad, Eret._

 _Because life at sea isn't easy, and from dawn until dusk and even after, there's always something more that needs doing on this ship, his odd little mobile childhood home; whether that's mending sails, weaving nets, swabbing the deck, or, of course, and best of all-_

 _ **trapping**._

 _Er. Only, unfortunately for him, that's just trapping fish, for now._

 _Because dragons?  
Well, that's a nasty business better left to grown-ups, __in the paraphrased words of one of his father's men._ _And so, to this very day, the child Eret's still never even seen a real live dragon up close, let alone helped_ _his father catch one._

 _And he, in his little chest, he's dying, just positively bursting, with a sense of insatiable curiosity; of eager, hungry longing-_

 _For adventure and excitement? That's a good part of it, sure._  
 _A break from routine might not be so bad, after all._

 _But also, and perhaps more than anything, it's just for...a sense of togetherness, Eret supposes..._  
 _For just the smallest piece of the camaraderie that even he, young as he is, can feel in the air whenever he and his father's men tramp below deck after a particularly tough bout and the dragons have already been locked up tight, only to tell him it's safe to come out of hiding again._

 _And that feeling...  
Well, it's like a secret. One that everybody else is a part of except for him, but it wouldn't hurt so bad if he and his father had their own secrets too._  
 _But no..._

 _For as long as he can remember, it's been this way._  
 _And if Eret's father has ever looked at him at all, it's been from ten feet across a room with a furrowed brow and a stony countenance, breath bated like he can't even bear the sight of his own son's face._

 _Disgust._  
 _It's one of the three very basic emotions that Eret's father is capable of showing, however faintly, when he bothers to show any emotion at all._  
 _(The second is keen alterness. Before and, for awhile, after every time he makes a drop to his mysterious employer who Eret's never seen.)  
_ _And the third, is this one._

 _It has no name, exactly._

 _All Eret knows is that it shows for a brief flicker, and never at Eret.  
But during those times, his father **almost** smiles. And he'll say maybe three words instead of none, and his face is alive in a way Eret's never seen before, and he wants so desperately to understand why._  
 _What is it about dragons that can make his father's faded pale blue eyes, color in, for just a second, a gleaming, hard silver?_

 _He's tried every little thing he can possibly think of to get that much closer to an answer but to no avail, and every time he's tried to sneak into the keep below deck, he's been caught. And given a rather harsh lashing for it too._

 _And so, to him, dragons are still naut but a word- as distant and frightening and mysterious as the man he calls his own 'father', and try as he might to escape it, Eret's life is nothing but cleaning and fishing and talking big all the while just trying to find some common ground with **someone**._

 _Perhaps it's futile..._  
 _Because Eret is, after all, just a boy. And when he talks, nobody listens and when he hides, nobody finds him, and when he tries so desperately hard to match up to the other men, to be seen as anything but a child, all they do is snort and laugh and stare down their noses and tell him condescendingly that he'll never understand..._

 _His blood boils at the thought of it._

 _Because one day, oh, he **will** , Eret swears, clenching his hand into a small, determined fist._

 _He'll show them.  
He'll be the finest dragon trapper around!  
And all the things he doesn't have now; adventure, fun, freedom- why, he'll have it all._

 _And then he'll be away from the suffocating, dead air surrounding a stoic father who's never once even told him he's loved him.  
He'll be away from the routine and monotony of scrubbing and sweeping and eating and sleeping and doing just about everything else ever in his life all alone or accompanied only by the judging eyes of his father's crew._

 _Eret lets out a breath then, pausing in his daily swabbing duty to do but one thing. And that is wipe at his sweaty brow and squint through the cold at the endless stretch of a, for-once, steady sea._

 _Because somewhere amidst all that endless, icy blue, is something that's just **got** to be so much bigger than the life he has now..._

 _There has to be. He's sure of it.  
And one day, he'll find it.  
He will._

 _Suddenly, a dark shadow passes over him, blocking out the sun's paltry rays entirely and shaking him from his thoughts._

 _Little Eret peeks his wide eyes up and then, swallows nervously.  
Because standing there is his father's right-hand man._

 _He's at least twice as tall and three times as burly as he is himself right now, and the armored man stares down at him imperiously, puffing his broad chest out and only making himself seem all the more intimidating._

 _"There's no time for slacking, boy!" the man barks at him. "We need this deck done by sundown!"_ _  
_

 _Eret shrinks in his shadow._

 _"I...Sorry." he mutters meekly._  
 _He dips his mop and swipes it across the floor in a show of obedience and, satisfied, the very large man stalks off._

 _Eret breathes a sigh of relief when he's gone.  
And then, he continues about his duties, whistling a merry tune to cheer himself._

 _But all the while, all the rest of the long week and month and year, he revels in his very own secret form of rebellion: of dreaming._

 _Dreaming of a great, grand life that'll one day take him to far away places, to far away people, to a far away life..._

* * *

"Alright, I think it might be time to give the nice dragon here a break now, everyone..."

A collective 'awwww' ripples through the small bunch of young ones before her, all clambering on, over, or under Bloodbiter in some shape or form, sticking to her back or legs like little burs to a woolen shirt, and Althea can't help but laugh.  
They're obviously enjoying this far too much. And judging by the dragon's trilling and tongue-lolling smile, so is she.

Still, Althea knows she's got a strict schedule to stick to today, and so...

"Oh, don't give me that again." she scolds gently. "We have to run through your sword drills everybody."

"But I don't want to..." one boy whines, blinking up at her with his best sad eyes and peeping at her upside down from Bloodbiter's front leg.

For a moment, Althea hesitates.  
"Well..." she says.

And this here is precisely the reason Althea had never thought she'd ever wind up a teacher alongside the others. She'd never exactly been one for social affairs, after all.

And yet, here she is.  
And she isn't sure why, but she supposes she must have some strange affinity with beasts who are stubborn and defiant and rebellious and difficult and...and...somehow loveable and...maybe just a little charming and...sort of adorable and...

She pauses.

And sensing their instructor's resolve has been weakened, the other children quickly join in with the pleading, all pouting their little lips and staring with tragic pairs of very wide open eyes from all over.

"Well..." Althea repeats.

The littlest one sniffles.

Oh, spirits be damned.

"Alright..." Althea relents uncertainly. "I... _ **suppose**_ we could stretch out your break for another ten minutes..."

Immediately, the little crowd's tears dry up, there are cheers and high-fives all around, and the dragon rider is just suspecting she's been completely swindled when "We love you, Althea!" the children shout.

Startled, Althea only blinks as one of the boys throws himself around her, and then she blushes and manages a few pats on his head before he runs off, shouting wildly with his arms flailing around in the air.

When he and his friends have all dispersed, a chuckle sounds from beside her.

"You'd better watch it, Cross. You spoil them too much and they won't know the blunt end of a dagger from the pointy one!"

Althea laughs as none other than Gobber, just as light-hearted and cheerful as he ever was, waves his prosthetic arm at her warningly as he limps over to her side.

"Oh, I think after you've scared them thoroughly with your own teaching methods, they'll be alright." she says. "'Learning on the job.' Remember?"

The man chuckles.  
"Well, you might be on to something there..."

He lets out a contented sigh as, for awhile, they relax and watch the little ones play. Then, Gobber suddenly hoists up his ever-sagging belt, heavy with tools and tricks and trades of all kinds, and asks, "So. How're things with Eret then, eh? You said he's been acting rather odd of late, no?"

"Oh." Althea blushes. "That. Yes...That is, he's fine...I think..." She pauses, then flashes him a sheepish smile. "I'm actually not sure. To be honest, he hasn't really explained himself yet and so..."

The man only chuckles knowingly and shakes his head, the two heavy braids of his mustache swaying to-and-fro.  
"He's not leading up to this very well, is he?" he mutters. "Clumsy sort. Bit of a surprise, but I suppose everybody has his weaknesses..."

Althea frowns.  
"...Sorry?"

And at that, the old man suddenly clamps a hand over his own mouth.  
"What? Oh! Nothing!" he says, with a too-loud laugh. "It's nothing you need to worry about, Cross!"

Althea highly doubts that, but just as she's about to ask, the man's friendly eyes flicker around in a frenzy before they finally settle on something in the distance, and his entire face brightens.  
"Er. Um. Oh! Speaking of which..." Gobber trails off.

He waggles his bushy blonde brows at her, then nods towards something a ways behind them at the entrance of the stadium before shuffling off under the pretense of having to keep an eye on the children.  
As he goes, she shoot her a gold-toothed grin.

What in the word?...

Frowning, Althea turns to look. And when she does...

Oh...

In a second, all of her confusion, her suspicion, vanishes.

Because there, leaning in the doorway of the keep: dark hair, amber eyes, blue tattoo...  
Just as handsome as ever.  
He breaks into a grin when he catches her eye, shoots her a wink, and Althea sighs.  
Just as cheeky, as ever, too...

But, even though it's been just hours since he's seen him last, something in her heart still comes home at the sight of him and neither of them can help but smile as they, at the very same time, begin to approach each other across the long stretch of dirt.

They meet somewhere halfway. And,

"Eret." she says in greeting, coming to a stop before him.  
"Althea." he replies, because he can.

For awhile, they say nothing.  
Because, coming together again after any kind of separation, however trite it might be, there's always been a strange sense of simple relief; of overwhelming happiness that they feel that they can't express in words; that they can only let wash through them as they take each other in again, uncertain of whether or not they should be embarrassed by this feeling of perfect self that happens only when they're together.

Does the other feel it too?  
A love that seems, always, just much too big for the occasion?...

They're almost afraid to ask it in words.

So when that sense of inexplicable warmth takes over them even now in the silence, quickly, they each take a breath; continue, leaving all of that care unspoken.

"What are you doing here?" Althea asks. "I thought you were busy today."  
But suddenly, a thought hits her and she stops short and her eyes begin to narrow warily. "...You're not here to cause trouble again, are you?"

"Please. Nothing so dishonorable." Eret promises. Then, he grins. "This dragon rider's merely come to...steal you away."

"I've- what? I've a class to teach." she protests.

Eret's grin only widens as he reaches out and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear; a gesture that still makes her blush.  
"If I know you, Althea, you've ended early." he says. "And you've likely run all their drills and done all their studying and given each a pouch of sweets to boot."

She winces.  
"...They've had...one sweet today. That's all..." she mumbles.

And at that, Eret barks out a jovial laugh because he just can't help it.  
"That's my girl." he answers, warmly.

Althea gives a testy sigh in return to mask the embarrassment.  
"You really ought to stop saying things like that in public, you know..." she huffs.

He only chuckles.  
"And you really aught to stop getting embarrassed by it, by now."

"Well, I-...Well, _**you**_ really aught to stop leaving the front of your vest open like that." she shoots back vengefully.

Eret looks down and sure enough, right at the seams of his shirt, there's a red mark peeking out and saying hello to the world. And now it's his turn to try and hide his flustered, blushing cheeks as he counters with,  
"Or maybe _**you**_ should stop leaving those where people can see."

"You weren't complaining last night." she returns.

And with that, she flashes him a sly grin and Eret's blood runs hot.

Oh, now she's done it...  
He peeks around. Nobody's looking.

Now's his chance.

And so, he suddenly pulls her in with a devilish grin and she giggles, knowing just what to expect, but just as he's about to press his lips to hers-

"Oi! What're you doin' here?"

Eret and Althea immediately lurch ten feet apart, heart's hammering away in their chests.  
But when they turn to look...

It's only little Brynjar, standing there with his hands stuffed in his pockets and kicking at rocks and stirring around looking embarrassed.

Althea takes a second to compose herself as best she can, praying to the gods he hadn't seen.

"It's only Eret, Brynjar. He's here all the time." she says with a nervous laugh.

The boy sniffles and wipes at a runny nose, tinged pink from the cold.  
"Yeah, I guess..." he mutters. "Whatever. Dag's cryin' again. S'all I wanted to say..."

And at that, much to Eret's dismay, Althea becomes 'Teacher Cross' again.  
"Not again..." she sighs, and then she's marching away, leaving just him and the boy standing around all alone, just the two of them.

Well, no matter.  
Brynjar had never really taken much of a liking to him in particular, but Eret is sure he can get the child to come around eventually.  
Er...He hopes, at least...

Rubbing his hands together in apprehension, he puts on a smile.  
"So. Been keepin' that sword arm strong, Brynjar?" he asks the boy cheerfully.

"I don't hafta tell you nuffing!" comes the defiant answer.

Well, so much for that.

And just as Eret's let out a sigh and resolved himself to complete and awkward silence as always, he can suddenly feel the boy throw a careful, cautious a glance his way.

"So..." Brynjar starts.

Eret smothers a smile and waits for the boy to continue, already knowing what the question will be.

"Sooo..." he says again, louder this time. "Is it...true? Yer thinkin' of askin' Althea to...get... _married_?" the child asks. And he whispers the last word so reverently Eret chuckles.

"Yes. That's right." he nods.

The child's face immediately contorts into a look of both shock and horror.  
"What? To _**you**_?" he balks. "No way! If anyone's marrying Althea, it's gonna be me! I'll- i'll fight ya for it!" the kid pouts, raising his fists, ready to scrapple.

Eret barks out an amused laugh.  
"Sorry, but you're ten years too young to match up against me." he answers.  
And with that, he gives the boy a friendly pat on his head before moving to join the others. But just then-

"Argh!"  
A swift kick to the shin and Eret's down for the count, groaning and clutching his knee as he rolls about on the ground in pain.

And at all the commotion,  
"Hey, look! Eret's fighting with Brynjar again!" a little girl cries gleefully.  
The children all dash over, screaming with laughter at the show.

"Eret..." he hears Althea sigh.  
The full-grown man looks up and she's giving him a stern eye, arms crossed over her chest like she can't believe him.

"Wha- He started it!" he protests.  
"I know, I know. But you can't provoke him." she chastises gently, pulling him up to his feet.  
"I-" Eret begins to argue.

But Gobber speaks over him before he can.  
"She's right, you know." the old viking chimes in with a laugh.  
And he's looking just a little _**too**_ amused for Eret's taste.

Still, he knows that at this rate, it's pointless and so Eret merely gives in with a sigh.  
"Alright, alright. I'm sorry." he says to everyone, and Althea nods in approval, thinking that'll be the end of it. But then...  
Eret grins a sly grin. "For that." he adds. "And...for having to steal Miss Althea here away from you all for a day."

Excited, the little ones 'ooh' and 'ahh' and squeal and gasp all at once.

"Can he do that?" Dag questions, turning his little head towards Gobber.

"I, well...If she wants to go, sure!" the viking says helpfully.  
And with that one sentence, he's back in Eret's good graces again.

Now, of course, all the little faces turn towards Althea, hanging eagerly on what her answer will be but she hesitates.

"Oh, go on. S'pose we can hold things down here for a day, can't we?" Gobber says, turning the question to the class.

"Yeees!" the little crowd choruses out together.

And, ever-so-reluctantly, Althea sighs.  
"Oh, alright." she says.

Eret grins a sunny grin. And then, "Skullcrusher!" he shouts to the skies.

There's a roar in the distance.  
Followed by the heavy flapping of wings growing nearer and nearer and then, before anyone can tell what's what, an enormous dragon swoops in from nowhere and lands at his feet with a dramatic flourish.  
"Wow..." Dag breathes in amazement.

"Shall we?" Eret says to Althea.

"...You've certainly grown to love your theatrics..." Althea remarks.  
Eret laughs.  
"My lover's always been a bit of a showman, you see." he explains.  
"That, she has." Althea smiles.

And with that, she lets out a long whistle prompting Bloodbiter to glide over in her own showy fashion.  
Not one to be outdone, of course, Althea then hops up onto the dragons back, as light as feather, and waits.

"Now who loves their theatrics?" Eret chuckles.  
But as he's rounding to his own dragon's side, Eret shoots the children a secret wink before he hitches himself onto his own saddle.

"You ready?" he asks her, once they're situated.  
Althea grins.  
"Ready." she nods. "For anything."

Eret hopes that dearly to be true.

And then, to the sound of amazed little children, all cheering and waving their little hands and hollering encouragement, two dragons and two riders push off into the sky, headed straight forward into the beginnings of a very hopeful future...  
And, though they may not realize it just yet, also straight back.

Into the dark, dreary depths of a horrid, horrid past.

* * *

 _Now that I have the basic plot of this story mapped out, I don't think updates should take months at a time anymore. Although, with school and work and just severe doubt issues in general, who really knows?...  
I'm sorry everyone!..._


	4. For The Lovers, Scarred But Strong

_I finally have the plot locked downnn. Can we say hallellujiah?_  
 _Ya'll, I know i've been away for longer than an eternity, and i'm really sorry! Trying to balance multiple stories along with school has been the absolute worst decision of my life..._  
 _Still, thank you so much for all your follows and comments. And hello to I Have Gone Away and Lethoniel! I appreciate your kind words! I really, really do! I can't tell you all that enough. Really.  
I'm still struggling with doubts, to be honest. (When am I ever not?) But thank you for sticking by me regardless! And if there are ever any issues, nonsensey plotlines, boring chapters, etc, let me know! I am more than willing to re-write!  
Happy summer break to you all! (And a happy summer class for me...)_

* * *

They land, exhilarated, in the midst of some forest set atop an impossibly high cliff; up higher even than the layer of mist that very nearly obscures the view of the sea completely.

"Why can't you just tell me what's going on already?" Althea laughs against the rush of cold wind as she dismounts.  
She gives Bloodbiter a few strokes on the nose and the dragon chirrups pleasantly as both dragon and rider wait for Eret, Son of Eret, to hop down from Skullcrusher's back himself.

"I can't tell you," Eret explains, landing on his feet with an easy grin. "because you are just going to have to see it for yourself."  
And with that, he goes rummaging through a pouch at Skullcrusher's side until his fingers finally close around a strip of deep red cloth, which he yanks from the bag first, and then triumphantly brandishes in her face.

Althea frowns.

Then, looks to Bloodbiter, expecting some show of confusion the same as her, but the dragon only glances quickly away and all-too innocently exchanges a look with the ever-sharp looking Skullcrusher.

They, all of them, are in on some big secret together then, and Bloobiter's abandoned her to side with Eret again.  
Oh, the betrayal. She doesn't know how she'll ever recover.

Althea sighs.  
"Just what, exactly, is that?" she asks Eret pointedly.

At the question, Eret, however, merely grins. And, in reply, he rounds behind her and begins placing the cloth over her eyes, completely obscuring her view.

Immediately, she shies away.  
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no. I don't think so." Althea says. "I'm not sure what kind of trick you and Tuffnut have planned out this time, but i'm not falling for-"

Eret silences her by laying a finger over her lips.

"Althea," he says.

He looks at her and suddenly, his voice is low and gentle, the voice he uses late at night when he cares less about being dapper and suave, and more about just being there in any way that he can. He uses his thumb to stroke the side of her cheek in a slow, tender gesture that would have been enough to render her quiet anyway and murmurs, "this time, it isn't like that. I promise. No tricks."  
Then, he flashes her a special smile and marks a sign over his heart. "Dragon rider's honor. Will you trust me, Althea?"

For a moment, her suspicious stare doesn't let up.

But then, finally, she gives an exasperated laugh and makes a show of defeat and, at that, Eret's face morphs into the brightest of grins as he steps closer to cover her eyes.

There's a fumbling and a bumbling as he tightens the ends around the back of her head, and he feigns a smooth confidence, but Althea can tell when he's nervous.  
His hands are practically shaking so hard, the blindfold's quivering right off her.

Whatever he has planned up his sleeve, it's something big.  
She wonders what it is...

She also wonders, as unsteady as his hands are, if he'll ever actually finish tying the blindfold and get around to showing her.

And so, she smothers a laugh and, where she can sense his face probably furrowed in concentration, she leans forward and presses a light but quick kiss to his warm cheek to calm him.

Shocked, Eret lets out a high-pitched, unintelligible yell and Althea giggles.

"I-...What- what was that for?" she hears him gape.

She shrugs innocently.  
"Just felt like it."

And Althea knows him so well, she can just imagine the blush as Eret rubs the back of his neck with his hand, and then...slowly begins to smile as he decides to come in for another.

When he does, she's ready for him.

And with his large, calloused hands settled on her waist, his familiar lips press against hers, and each kiss, with them, it's something special.  
It's a way to make up for all of that wasted, lost time when he was lowly trapper and she was awe-inspiring rider and being together was but a simple, sad delusion because all they did was hurt and be hurt and fester in their wounds.

They're something different now; something better.

But even with the good year they've had, they know they've not even begun to catch up on all the time they've wanted to be together just yet.

One day, they'll get there.

They'll work towards it.  
Just like...  
Well, just like this.

When they pull away from each other's warmth, she smiles. And he does.

A cool wind blows against their heated skin.  
The trees rustle.  
The dragon's chirp and garble in the background as they play.

And the two riders, as the fresh mountain air fills up their lungs, they feel as if they're on top of the world.

* * *

 _Home isn't home.  
Not anymore._

 _Where, once, it felt full and happy, overflowing with laughter and fun and her father and mother's rambunctious laughter,_  
 _where, once, it made her wonder how these four wooden walls could even begin to contain all the life in her parent's eyes,_  
 _now, it's only empty._

 _And quiet._

 _And still..._

 _The fires have gone out, not to be lit for weeks, and in every corner, there's gray dust that hasn't been swept and it swirls in the air and turns the whole place just as ashy and grey as she feels._

 _She doesn't run around shrieking with glee as her father and mother chases her, roaring like ferocious beasts. She doesn't dress herself ridiculously and sneak into her parent's room just to scare them or make them laugh._

 _Now, Althea spends her time slipping around corners._  
 _Like an intruder who doesn't belong there, too afraid that if she moves too freely, smiles too big, shows any sign at all of forgiving herself, she'll stir up the sleeping ghosts that now linger over her everywhere she goes._

 _Gobber is the only villager who pretends to know her now._  
 _Like clockwork, once every week, he comes._

 _And every time, he watches the sheep, makes sure Althea keeps clean._  
 _He brings her food._

 _She takes it wordlessly. Eats it sullenly in a chair by a dark, cold fireplace where her feet don't even reach the floor._

 _"Time will heal it, Althea. Don't you worry." he tells her cheerfully.  
_ _  
She appreciates the kindness, but doesn't believe the words. Because here, a few months later, it's only growing worse.  
And the grief and the blame has mangled the good memories, made them distorted and wrong until she can't even bear to remember them, at all.  
Instead, they slip and they slip, until, after a time, Althea has only vague faces to cling to anymore.  
_ _And, even for this, she only has herself to blame._

 _Gobber leaves her again, and time passes._

 _And then, a week later as always, Gobber is back._

 _"The best form of justice, is vengeance." he says this time over some stew._

 _And well, now that there, is a sentiment that Althea can stomach more easily.  
She looks up at him, showing interest in something for the first time in months._

 _"We'll give back what we got a hundred fold, Cross. In fact, i've been pre-training a few young ones your age for a coupla weeks now. You know them all. Why don't you join us, eh? Who knows? You could become our star dragon killer." he chuckles._ _  
_

 _The very next morning, for the first time in months, she ventures to the stadium to train.  
The sunlight blinds her.  
The fresh air shocks her._

 _She tries to breathe._

 _...But soon, she realizes that wherever she goes, pairs of unreadable, unblinking eyes are...following her._

 _Ack and Mildew and Bucket freeze in their tracks._

 _The village people group together._  
 _Whispers start._

 _She's the center of attention wherever she goes._

 _All of a sudden, Althea's hands are clammy, her breathing goes shallow. The further she gets from her doorstep, the smaller and smaller she shrinks until she's just crouched on the ground..._  
 _Trembling in her boots._

 _She swallows._

 _And then...all of a sudden,_  
 _she just runs._

 _Faster and faster and faster, until everything that passes by her is only a quick blur of colors._  
 _All the way down to the stadium, she runs, feet pounding so hard on the ground, her lungs are searing in pain and she's gasping and wheezing so hard that when she actually gets there, she whams right into Gobber and he catches the tiny girl in his hands and half-thinks she's dying._

 _"Ho, there, Althea! Get a hold of yourself, can you?" Gobber exclaims, setting her back on the ground and straightening her out._

 _She tries to smile apologetically, but then she realizes that there are eyes watching her everywhere here, too._

 _There in the corner, the blonde one is Astrid, the tall one is Spitelout, and that's Ruffnut and Tuffnut and Fishlegs, too..._

 _She shrinks back._

 _And noticing that, Gobber quickly claps his hand and his frying pan prosthetic together._  
 _"All right! Quit staring, the lot of of you, and get in line! We're starting!"_

 _As the lessons progress, Althea finds eventually that...she's very good at what she does._

 _And it all comes to a head when, at the very end of the first week, Gobber announces,_

 _"Now, as a special treat, who thinks they're ready to put what they've learned to practice?"_

 _Nearly everybody volunteers.  
_ _But the one Gobber picks, is her._

 _And before she even knows it, Althea finds herself staring down at a trapped Gronckle with a shield in one hand and an axe in the other, at a complete loss for what it is that she's supposed to do._

 _"Go on! Knock it out! Like I taught you!" Gobber shouts helpfully from off to the side._

 _Althea's eyes widen._  
 _And despite herself, for a moment, she looks down at the weapon in her hand and pauses._

 _Because in the reflection of this enemy's glassy, round eyes, she...sees herself._

 _And she gets the oddest feeling that this moment, right now, it could change who she is forever._

 _But then, "Go on! You can do it!" Gobber shouts again, breaking her from her thoughts. "Bang the axe against the shield to disorient it, Althea!"_

 _Hesitantly, she follows orders.  
The axe feels heavier in her hand than it's ever felt before, but she does it._

 _The creature groans and twists and turns trying to escape the nosie, but her reflection is suddenly gone._

 _And it's a strange sort of comfort, to swing the axe right through the air, and see that reflection of hers blinking into confusion and then nothing instead._

 _She does it again. And again. And again._  
 _With the axe, she attacks herself three times, quick and strong and reckless until she forgets that it's her that she blames and, wrong as it may be, she only blames the dragon instead.  
_ _And suddenly, resolve built up sky high, she raises her weapon and strikes the blunt end of it hard right against the dragon's head (For her parents.) and at once, the creature stops its struggling and falls to the ground with a heavy thud._

 _She breaks from the mad daze, breathing hard._

 _And once she truly sees what she's done, Althea feels somehow like a part of her's been lost..._

 _But before she can linger on that, Gobber only flashes her a grin._

 _"Very good!" he exclaims. He turns to the class. "Did you all see that? Tomorrow, all of you will be doing the very same thing! Read up on Gronckles tonight to make sure you're ready."  
He notes Snotlout's frown and adds, "And if you can't read yet, well...have your parents do it for you. Class dismissed!"  
_

* * *

"Alright. We're here." Eret announces, with a grin. He releases his hold on her and she can immediately hear him rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "You can take it off now."

Slowly, Althea does.

She squints at the sudden light, waits for her eyes to adjust, but even then, at first, she's just...well, confused.

Because stretched across her line of sight is the ocean. And the clouds. And the sky.  
And that's all very pretty and all, but it's also, basically, a view that she could see from any other place in Berk, really.

She gives Eret a look of confusion.  
But he only laughs and places his strong hands on her shoulders and,  
"Turn around." he murmurs into her ear, guiding her in the right direction.

She lets him, but even when she's staring right at it, all she does is blink.

It makes him rather nervous, to be honest.  
And for a moment, Eret wonders if he's gone about it all terribly wrong.  
He swallows and is just about to set about to apologizing and going to some improvised Plan B, but then, a breeze blows, it catches in the light, it finally, _**finally** _ registers and she gasps.

"...This...?" Althea murmurs.

Slowly, she steps forward, past the foliage, past the ledge, until she comes to a single beautiful, grand, tall tree growing right near the edge of the cliff.

And yes, it's true that a very nice-looking tree shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary either for her either, but this one, it's different.  
Because tied up in this particular tree's strong, twisted branches that stretch sky high and nearly drape over the edge of the cliff, are little carved trinkets of all kinds, hanging on bits of string and glittering in the mid-morning sun.

She reaches up and stops one as it sways on its thread in the wind.

It's...why, it's a tiny little wooden dragon.  
It's no bigger than her thumb, painted jet black and poised into a silly, toothless grin and it looks as if it's mid-chirrup.

Althea giggles at its charm and shows it off to the dragon at her side, and obviously loving it very much, Bloodbiter gurbles and turns to Eret with a pleased smile.

"Do you like it, old girl?" he asks, bending to give her inky black scales a scratch.

In response, however, she pounces enthusiastically and runs a sloppy, wet tongue across his face.  
"Argh! Oh. Well, i'm...glad to hear it." he laughs, trying to edge away from the worst of the drool between licks.

When she's quite finished, he picks himself up off the grass and looks down at himself.

Oh, no. Wonderful.  
His ever-so-carefully selected shirt is now damp and soaked in dragon spit with bits and pieces of foliage plastered all over.

"Bloodbiter..." Eret groans.

The dragon just gargles a laugh and, settled over by a fallen log, Skullcrusher blinks, lifts his great big horned head, and grins at his rider's dilemma too.

"Priceless, the bond between dragon and rider, they told me..." Eret mutters.

The dragons only prick their ears, and Eret sighs, but turns his attention back to Althea, who has been wandering around and marveling at all the little carvings on her own.

"What is all of this?" she says to him, once she's come full circle.

"Do you like them?" Eret asks, hopefully.

"Yes! They're..."  
Althea tries for a word, but in the end, just shakes her head with an astounded laugh. "They're beautiful. They're...They're unbelievable! But I don't understand. What are they for?"

And, oh...  
There's the question he's been waiting to hear all along.

Immediately, Eret draws himself to his full height. He smooths down his rumpled, damp fur vest and takes a deep breathe in and then out.  
He clears his throat.

"Althea..." he begins, drawing nearer to her. "Do you...remember when we first met?"

She quite surprised by the question at first, but moments later, she finds herself laughing at the memory.  
It seems so long ago now, but she's been careful to keep it all safe in her head, and exactly the way that it happened.

"Of course I do." she says.

He gives her a look that urges her to tell the story and she sighs at his roundaboutness, but counts out the paraphrased points on her fingers.

"Well, you tried to capture me. I escaped, Bloodbiter grabbed you, and we wound up flying to a cliff where I tied you to a-..." A sudden thought hits her then. "-to a-..." she trails off, eyes widening.

But, no...It couldn't be...Could it?

But Eret, reading her expression, only nods at her, with a grin.  
"-where you tied me to a tree." he finishes for her softly. He lays his heavy hand against the trunk and gives it a few pats. "One that's located not too far off from Berk."

Althea looks at him then, eyes wide, lips parted in surprise.  
She looks back at the tree, then at him, then back at the tree, and then back at him again.  
"I-...Here? It was here?" she asks.

"What, don't believe me?" Jokingly, Eret holds out the blindfold. "Want to try tying me to it again, to see if it looks familiar?"

Althea just laughs at that, too overwhelmed to answer that quip with one of her own.  
"Why didn't you ever tell me you found it?" she asks.

Eret grins, pleased to know that part one of his plan, thus far, is a success.  
But he quickly tries to temper that triumphant feeling for the much more frightening part that's about to come up next.

"Because," he says. "I was working on telling a story. And I hadn't reached the end of it yet."

"...You're very cryptic today." Althea says, tilting her head.

He smiles and with a flourish,  
"Well, then let me explain."

Holding her lightly by the elbow, he leads her back to the dragon figure.  
"You see this one? I started carving this just soon after the day we met..."

She looks at him, wide eyed, and he softens at her show of surprise.

"Me and my men, we'd sit around the fire and for some reason, this is what my hands always wanted to make." Eret says. He smiles and nods to the others. "They came along after. They're...memories."

One-by-one, he points them out.

"The key when I let you go. The mask when we had our dance. The flower for your parents. Anything important, it's all carved out in little pieces right here." he says. Then, he grins and shoots the dragons a look. "Bloodbiter and Skullcrusher, too, of course." he adds loudly enough for them to hear.

Bloodbiter perks her head up, tongue lolling out in a happy smile.  
Uncaring, the other dragon merely lets out a snort and Althea laughs.

Then...she thinks about it all and laughs again, too happy, too surprised, too touched for words and not having a single other clue of quite how to react.

She's never in her life been given something like this. Not ever.  
And how her life has changed...  
Where once she was alone, now, she has a dragon, best friends, someone she loves.  
Someone who loves her...

Althea smiles in a way that makes Eret's heart expand and she takes his hand in hers and she steps back to take the grand thing in, for all of its beauty.

The sun reflects off the little trinkets and, between the pale green of the leaves, little glints of colors shimmer all around them.  
The ocean waves are shushing gently, the dragons are trilling in contentment...

It all feels to her like a beautiful, surreal dream.

"Thank you..." Althea says quietly.  
Eret's warm hand tightens around hers.  
"All in a day's work for the finest whittler around." he jokes glibly.

She only laughs, but the look in her eyes, so soft and gentle, tells him everything he needs to know.

For a moment, it seems as if she'll kiss him and Eret waits eagerly for that gentle press of her lips against his...

He leans in just a bit closer.  
His eyes shut.  
His heart swells in anticipation...

But just then, she seems to recalls something suddenly and, much to Eret's chagrin, she pulls back and the moment is over.

"Hang on..." she says with a frown. "You just said that you hadn't reached the 'end of it yet'...What's the end of the story?" she asks.

And at that, despite his disappointment, Eret's smile suddenly turns cheeky again.  
Because, just as he'd thought, she's asking all the right questions and everything is going perfectly.

He just hopes that this good fortune will keep up...All the way to the end...  
He'd never exactly been a child with the best of luck, after all.  
Nevertheless, right now, he remains optimistic.  
 ** _She's_** here with him, after all.

And, comforted by that thought, Eret says, ever-so-secretively,  
"To learn that, there's one other place we need to go, dear dragon rider."

"I, wait, wha- ?" she starts to protest.

But with a twinkle in his eyes, Eret, Son of Eret has already scooped her off of her feet, and he's taken to running all the way back towards the dragons, full sprint, with one Althea Cross screaming and laughing in his arms all the way.

* * *

 _I hope you enjoyed!  
I split this chapter into two parts, which I hate having to do, but the next part should be up soon! _


	5. For The Wounds, Healed And Not

Hope this is okay...  
I worried a lot, a LOT, a lotttt over whether this would make any sense. But after re-watching the second movie basically a hundred times, I looked and looked and noticed that a certain "thing" was never made 100%, well...certain? But if it is just the worst idea EVER (which i'm pretty sure it is...) just let me know and I will absolutely, positively do my best to fix it.  
Thank you all for taking the time to read!  
...DSFNGDKFMS...

* * *

 _Eret remembers the day of his 10th birthday well._

 _(As if he could ever forget it.)_

 _He remembers because that morning, he had expected to be left to sleep in as late as he wished, with no waiting list of chores for him to see to, but no other real form of acknowledgement- such was the way of things for his birthday before that one and the one before that one and so on.  
_

 _But this time, it's different._

 _It's different because it's his father, his very own father, who shakes him by the shoulder at the break of dawn, until the young boy in the worn, white tunic slowly stirs under the covers and blinks his amber eyes open.  
The little boy yawns and squints and even with the blurry vision, he can just make out a tall, stern figure and...oh.  
 **Well**._ _  
Now isn't this a surprise?_

 _"Father?..." little Eret mumbles sleepily._

 _Rubbing at his face with his small fists, he wonders what on earth the man could be doing here._

 _It couldn't possibly be to wish him a happy birthday. In 10 long years, his father's never even uttered to him so much as a good morning.  
_ _Eret then idly thinks back to anything he could have done wrong amongst yesterday's chores, but nothing jumps immediately to mind...  
_ _And so, "...What are you doing here?" Eret mumbles, quite confused._

 _During an uncomfortable stretch of silence, the man's usually creased brow furrows even further until it becomes his signature frown._

 _"...Son..." the stoic man says with difficulty. (Eret ignores how his father winces like the word's a poison.) "...Today...Today, you're coming with me."_

 _For a moment, Eret just stares._  
 _He can hardly believe it._

 _"R-...Really?" he says.  
_ _  
His father nods.  
_

 _And, quite stumped, at first, Eret can't even comprehend the gesture.  
But then, when he does, Eret jolts up like a straight shot, suddenly wide-awake and face shining with hope._

 _"Really?...Father, really?" he pipes. "Do you mean it?"_

 _His father stalls. His great big hand curls into a tight fist, but he takes a breath and nods.  
_ _"Yes." he says, through gritted teeth._

 _Eret gasps excitedly._

 _He's ecstatic!_  
 _And suddenly, he can't be stopped._  
 _Pent up questions, desperate, lonely conversations he'd been imagining in his head, all burst from him at once in the simple excitement._

 _"Where will we be going? Are we going to trap a dragon today? Are you going to teach me?" he pleads. "A real live dragon, father? Are we going out, just the two of us, without the oth-" Eret chatters._

 _But, with every question, his father's jaw only clenches tighter and tighter, until finally, Eret makes the mistake of grasping at his armguard, at the mysterious trinket always wound around it, and-_

 _"Stop it!" his father erupts, pulling out of his reach. "This right here is your problem, son! Whatever you do, why do you always have to act all wrong?"_

 _The words sting like a knife across his heart and immediately, Eret shrinks back._

 _The room is dead silent._

 _And seeing Eret's face, his father sighs, holding one hand to his throbbing skull, eyes shut, and shaking his head like this entire thing was a mistake._

 _The whole while long, Eret remains quiet. And his eyes are turned to the ground._

 _He feels dangerously close to crying...  
But that would probably only disappoint his father more.  
And so, he clamps his teeth on his bottom lip, tries to swallow the weakness down and, instead, tries to be brave, to be stern, to be stoic, like him._

 _But after a moment, his father takes a deep breath and then, he tries again in a voice that's only...even more gentle._

 _"I'm- I...I'm sorry..." he mumbles._

 _Astonished, Eret peeks up._

 _His father's lips twist into some dead version of a smile.  
_ "G _et ready and come out for breakfast, son...All will be clear soon."_

 _And then, something even stranger happens._ _  
_

 _His father hesitantly reaches out a hand, doesn't know quite where to put it, and finally settles for awkwardly patting him on the head before he leaves him._

 _And, now, Eret is young. And he's careless. And he's blinded by hope..._

 _And so, determined not to let the bitter start of the day get to him, after a sniffle and a determined nod and a huff, he forces himself to cheer with the thought that things couldn't possibly get any worse._

 _He'll prove himself to his father today, and maybe he won't need to make his big break, the one he's been dreaming of for years and years, after all._  
 _Maybe, instead, he can be part of the crew._  
 _A dragon trapper.  
For real._

 _Yes. That's exactly what he'll do._

 _He's determined._

 _And with that decided, Eret takes a fresh breath, puffs himself up, and climbs out of bed to start his day.  
_  
 _But all throughout the morning meal, he's so distracted by his tempting dreams that he misses the fact that his father's eyes are creased heavy with lines of sadness._

 _They're pained, but even so, they, at long, long last, fall only on Eret._

 _As if they're memorizing him.  
_ _As if...As if they're remembering him._

 _As if...this is very last time they'll ever get the chance to see him._

* * *

This time, they ride much, much further. Until they arrive in the middle of nowhere, near a small island past all the vibrant green and the glimmering gold and the rich scarlet.

The swirling streaks of violet and silver and pink in the skies are all dull clouds and grey now, and if it is autumn in Berk, it's most definitely mid-winter here, and already, the snow and the glaciers are monstrous and tall, sending cold chills down their spines as they traverse across the snowy dunes of nowhere, down a path that looks old and hidden by the twiggy, dead shrubs by the road.

Here, they walk alone.

The dragons have been sent off, a strange thing for Eret to do, Althea notes. Usually, he's like to keep them as close as she is, but before they'd left, he'd waved them off with a wink and a good few pats on the heads.  
She's almost certain she saw Bloodbiter spit up a leather pouch into his hand, but she doesn't say.

Oh, she very well could, of course. And probably _**should**_ , in fact, as this is all very suspicious behavior. Even for him.

But for now, Althea Cross trusts, at the very least, that this isn't just another elaborate ruse to distract her from her daily training until she's forced to clean the dragon stables for a week, and today, that's good enough for her.  
Because oh, gods...  
Ever since her... _ **experience**_ there, her sense of smell's not been entirely right and she still has nightmares about the putrid stench lingering all over to this very day.

Shuddering, she gives her head a shake and instead, sets to asking question after question, trying to figure out where, exactly, they're headed instead.

"You'll see in a couple of moments." Eret promises with a chuckle, helping her over an icy boulder. "For now, just let it be a surprise, will you?"

"Can I at least take a guess?" she huffs as they continue to climb on and over the continually trickier and trickier landscape of the island; over rock nooks, through little tunnels, across flats of ice.

"Well, you can try. But I don't think you'd be able to get it with a hundred guesses." Eret grins confidently.

Unfortunately, he's right.  
By now, she's learned that his eccentricity is quite on a level to match her own, and to be quite honest, between a year of painted dragons and flower garlands and made-up songs, Althea doesn't know of any kind of madness that would surprise her any more.

But then, they actually get there.  
To the top of quite a steep hill and they slide down carefully on their feet, at first, and then, following their growing momentum, jog down to the bottom and, it's there, where the ground flattens into a nearly empty stretch of white, that Althea finds that she was very, very wrong.

There _**is** _ still one thing that she'd have never suspected from him in a million years...

A feeling of cold dread, purely out of instinct, creeps into her blood as she glances at her surroundings uneasily.

And for a moment, she's thrown into a nightmare panic where she can't even move.  
Glimpses of memories flash before her eyes.

A fortress. Dark, stony, cold.  
A cage.  
A dragon.  
Her.  
She stands face to face, there's a sword in her hand, she's hungry...So, _**so**_ hungry and she doesn't want to, but the more she thinks it, the more that hunger claws at her insides and so she raises her sword and-

"Althea." a voice says, startling her from her memory.

She gasps and flinches back, but it's only...Eret that she sees when she turns.

Oh.

And, well, of-...of course it's only Eret.  
Because all of _**that**_ is in the past, now.

She blinks herself out of her daze.  
And then, she forces herself to look out at the land again.  
At the immense stretch of snow where still one single black fortress rises out of the ground a good hundreds of feet away like the sharp, clustered spikes of an iron trap.

As much as she's tried to forget it, every detail stands out to her, every stone, every crack in the wall, as clear as it was in her head...

But- but that's alright because it's over now, she tells herself again.  
It's over. It's over. It's over...

She takes in a shaky breath of stinging winter air and then tries for a smile.

"Our...old prison. Oh, Eret. You're such a romantic." Althea deadpans jokingly, but the uneasy reassurance that she has to try so hard to give him, only sends a sad grip clenching around in his chest.

Before he can stop himself, Eret wraps her up into his strong arms and pulls her into his chest, tight. And despite her anxious feelings, after a moment, she finally relaxes and holds him back.

"Should we leave? Is it too hard to be here?" he murmurs, pulling back and tilting her chin until her eyes meet his.

But she only grasps his calloused hand in hers, presses her cheek against its familiar warmth, and shakes her head.  
"I can manage." she promises softly. She presses a quick kiss to his palm.  
"But let's get this over with quickly, shall we?"

He nods and bumps her forehead gently with his own in agreement. Then, he leads her over to a stump, where he dusts off the snow before he plants her down and she waits for Eret to begin.

He wants this over with quickly, too.  
He doesn't exactly like being back here. Not a soul in Berk does and, in fact, not a single person nor dragon has returned since Drago's been defeated. Not even Hiccup or Toothless themselves.

But, for the two of them, Eret and Althea, it's a place that they wouldn't be who they are without. And, for her...it's a place he wants to rewrite.  
With good memories, if possible.  
With the best.

But, what a tall order to have to try and fill...

Subconsciously, his hand slips into his pocket where it finds that little pouch with the ring of gold inside and, trying to gather his courage, he slowly breathes out a steaming puff of white in the cold.

"Alright. Here I go..." he says.

Althea shoots him an encouraging smile, but Eret only nervously smooths back his hair before he begins.

"So. Right. To start." he says. "Now, I do understand, Althea, that it might've seemed...daft, bringing you here. For a long time, I thought I shouldn't." He cringes as he admits. "Astrid might've begged me not to..."

"...And yet, here we are anyway." Althea laughs, arching a brow.  
She's not sure if she's more amused or dumbfounded by that.

In return, Eret flashes her a sheepish smile.  
"Well, yes..." he says, wringing at his hands. "See, I thought about it. A lot. Pondered it for days, but the more I carved out the details of our story, the more I realized: for all the different things that have happened, most of what's important took place right here." Eret says, holding out his arms wide and gesturing out to the empty space around them grandly. His voice nearly echoes in the cold dead air and he turns to her with an expectant smile.

For a moment, Althea's brow furrows, as if she's considering what to say.  
She doesn't want to say the wrong thing when he's clearly so enthused, after all, but...in the end, all she can manage is a safe, but somewhat confused, "Alright?..."

Eret chuckles and drops his arms.

"What i'm trying to say is," he says meaningfully. "I haven't ever been a good man, Althea. You already know that. My entire life, I went from innocent child, to bad, to worse until I became the, admittedly very successful, and very handsome," he flashes her a brief grin and she kicks up some snow at him, giggling. "trapper that I was when I met you."

He gives her another look, hoping to Thor that this time she'll understand the kind of serious, sappy mood that he's going for.

But she only grins, cheeks and nose flushed happy from the cold.  
"Yes, well, obviously meeting me didn't do much to help you be 'good', either." she teases. "Especially when it comes to humility."

And now, Eret nearly groans and he wants to plant his head in his hands.  
How can he be such a spectacular failure?  
He sighs.

But then, oh, to hell with it all.

He looks right at her. And then, quite seriously, in a voice that's low and gentle, "It did me the only good." he says firmly. "Because the first right thing I did in all my life, happened because of you..."

Althea blinks. And then, tries not to blush.  
But at the very unexpected and yet earnest way Eret is looking at her, how ever can she not?...

Eret nearly breaks the mood by grinning in triumph when he sees her cheeks turn pink.

"Oh..." she says. "Well, that's all very nice of you to say, Eret. But...I thought we already covered this. You're a rider, now." she murmurs gently. "And whatever you've done in the past, you're plenty good enough for me. I never-..."

She trails off suddenly.

And poor simple Eret, he thinks it's because she's merely lost for words.

He smiles adoringly.  
"I still needed you to remember that. To remember exactly the kind of man that I was and, in some respects, will always be." he continues. "I will always carry my past with me, Althea. And here?" he says, once again gesturing to their surroundings. "This is where I was the worst version of myself."

She frowns but remains oddly silent. And poor simple Eret, he thinks it's because she doesn't like what he's saying. He doesn't even notice the sudden shadow being cast in the distance far over his shoulder.

"But now, i'm the best version." he continues. "And so, it's only now that I feel I have the right to do...this." he says, flashing her a nervous smile as he kneels down to the ground.

He sucks in a deep breath, puffs out his chest, and holds out the ring.

"Will you-..." he says.

Althea's eyes widen.

"-Althea Cross,-"

Althea's eyes lock in on something over his shoulder and she freezes.

"-give me your hand,"

Althea's breath stops.  
It doesn't even seem like she's listening, and that worries him, to say the least, but even so, he knows he has to push on.

"-in-..." he says, drawling out the 'n' to a devastating crawl.

He pauses for a breath.

"-marria-"

But he doesn't ever get the full word out.

Because all of a sudden, there's a sharp gasp, and then a "Get down!"  
And before Eret knows what's what, a quick hand reaches out and yanks him down by the collar until both he and Althea are sprawled all over each other in the sparse cover of the snowy brush.

The ring is nearly knocked clean from his hands, but he manages to hold tight to it at the expense of a mouthful of icy snow.

"Althea, what on Odin's great freezing earth-?..." Eret splutters.

But "Shhh!" she shushes him at once, clamping a hand over his mouth.

At first, Eret figures this must be a rejection.  
A very...odd kind, all told, but it is what it is and he's crushed.

But then, as he fights to get up, he takes another brief second to actually _ **look** _ and he sees that her eyes are darting back and forth, he can feel her heart pounding rapidly through her clothes, he can see the cold sweat break out across her forehead.

He's seen this before.  
He sees it less and less often these days, but when it used to happen, it was always at night, when she woke up screaming each time from the very same thing.  
The very same memories.

Eret sobers immediately. He pushes his other thoughts aside.

"What's the matter, Althea?" he asks.

She can't say a word. She tries, but she's breathing too hard.  
Instead, she shakes her head and tries to make it all just go away.  
Because it couldn't be. It _**couldn't**_.

Eret doesn't give up.  
"Althea. Althea. Look at me." he pleads, holding onto her shoulders. "You have to tell me. What's wrong?"

It takes a moment.  
But finally, she calms enough for her eyes to fall into focus and then dart just slightly over towards the edge of the brush and back.

"Go look...But be careful." she whispers pleadingly, her voice a thin trickle of air.

Slowly, silently, Eret crawls over on all fours. And when he peeks through the shrubbery and follows her line of sight back to the fortress-

his entire body goes ice cold with horror.

For a moment, it's as if the whole world is spinning and a sudden crushing pain grips right onto his heart; stops his breath short, sends his mind spiraling into panicked flashes of colors, faces, feelings...

And then, when finally, he looks away and his mind starts clear, he can't help but think back to the nightmare he'd had just that very morning.

Because he's realizing now that...it wasn't a dream of the past. But an omen of the future.  
For, if he thinks now very clearly, amongst all the other faces that he'd seen before he'd woken, there was one in particular that he only should have remembered that much sooner.

It had been hooded, and dark, and scarred...  
It had been a face that still haunts him even in the daylight.

Althea too. Althea **especially**.

And now, here, even from hundreds of feet away, it's a face they're so terrified of, they'd recognize it at a single, nightmarish glance.

 ** _Him._**

Alive and well. Alive and... _ **real**_.

Not gone.

Not gone at all.

* * *

 _His father doesn't say a word the whole mysterious trip._

 _Eret tries his hardest with the sails and the steering and the nets, of course.  
Doubly so, today.  
_ _But no matter how well or right he does anything, his father's completely still, only staring down at his hands as his ship's lifeboat slithers slowly through the black waters and towards the shore where an odd, ugly fortress that Eret's never seen before protrudes from the ice._

 _There are a group of men waiting on the shore._  
 _Some of them look a lot like his father, Eret notices._  
 _Well, not so much in hair or eye color, maybe, but they dress about the same, and they smile about the same, too.  
Which is, of course, to say, they don't at all._

 _When it's time to step out, one of the unsmiling men ties the boat to a post near the dock so it doesn't drift away and his father nudges a nervous Eret forward._

 _He doesn't think he likes this trip anymore...  
_  
 _But nevertheless, he carefully climbs out with the help of a very strong man with a rough and unkind grip._

 _As his father climbs out behind him, Eret glances around at the figures before him more closely._  
 _And as he studies face after face, he wonders how it is that a group of people could ever look this unhappy..._

 _It all becomes clear, just as his father said it would, when one-by-one, all of these towering men, as intimidating as they appear, part to the side, revealing-..._

 _ **Him.**_

 _With a mysterious leathery cloak, a pointed staff in hand:_  
 _Immense and imperious and impossible to match._

 _As soon as the stranger's in sight, t_ _he first thing that floods Eret's vision is the singular color black._

 _Because the terrifying man standing over him is so tall and titanic he seems to block out the very sun itself, like an eclipse, where suddenly the whole world is thrown into darkness and shadow, and there's a powerful yet wicked aura around him that makes Eret want to shiver, but his father's tight grip on his arm won't let him._

 _Little Eret swallows fearfully at the scarred, hooded face that hovers above and,_ _so frightened is the young boy, that he finds himself just desperately wishing in his childish mind for someone, anyone, would let him know that it's going to be alright. To just crack the tiniest of smiles, maybe..._

 _Finally, someone does._

 _But it is not at all who Eret expects._

 _It is the man; the terrifying man._

 _And as his scarred face morphs into the most chilling, frightening grin Eret has ever seen, he_ _learns that day, that some things that are meant to be good, can be made terrible, too. And once made terrible, they can't be changed back._

 _Not ever._

 _"So this is the boy..." a low, growling voice says._

 _The man throws his head back and laughs._

* * *

The past year was a dream...

All just a lovely desperate vision and now, Althea supposes, they've finally been woken up to the reality of a harsh, cold, ugly world that she was foolish enough not to ever suspect somewhere deep down inside of her.

She was too happy. She felt too safe.  
She got too caught up with believing herself free of all her crimes.

And now...

She's being shown the truth.

Only, in the absolute worst way possible; as if, all of a sudden, they've been plunged from sunny springs and summers, straight into the wintery cold depths of a bottomless sea and are being held there now to drown and freeze, and freeze and drown.

"Eret..." Althea whispers.  
Her voice is a feeble, hoarse wisp of air, microscopic against the vast scope of their surroundings, and so she tries it again. "Eret," she says. "Tell me that isn't..."

She trails off and looks at him with eyes so afraid, it kills him to have to say it. But...

"It is..." Eret answers. "It's Drago Bludvist."

And just as he's confirmed her absolute rawest and most visceral fear, Althea's chest rises and falls again, rapidly in time with her furiously pounding heart, and she shrinks into herself like a mouse cornered by a pack of wolves, the way the confines of her skull can scarcely even begin to contain the splitting pain of shock.

Eret is just wondering what on earth he can do, when suddenly,

Althea turns and throws herself into his arms.

And after the momentary surprise wears off, Eret wraps his bulky arms around her and just pulls her ever closer.  
Because Eret can feel her shallow breaths against his neck and he knows that she is scared...

So is he.

They cling to each other tightly. As if they'd never fully shaken that instinct of being no more than prey.  
And as much as they love each other, as much as they need each other, even wrapped up in each other's warmth, it's hardly enough against the sharp, stinging cold of their surroundings.

Them, merely two small, insignificant figures, desperate and terrified and all alone, surrounded on all sides by nothing but miles and miles of ice and snow and danger in the middle of a vast, unforgiving wasteland...

Suddenly, it all becomes too much.

"We need to go." Althea begs, pulling away just enough to look into his eyes. "Eret, we need to go back to Berk and warn the others. Now."

Solemnly, he nods.

And then, taking her cold hand in his, he runs.  
They both run.  
As fast as they possibly can.

To get away from the dreaded figure of every worst memory they've ever had that's standing tall and angry at the bow of a ship docking just yards behind them.

To get out of the clutches of their nightmares, and their shame, and their guilt, and instead get back towards safety, back towards Berk, back towards Bloodbiter and Skullcrusher, and the blessed hope that all of this, as beautiful as it had started out, will most certainly just be a dream.

One that they can wake from.

* * *

 _Hope you enjoyed?...Ugh. Oh no..._


	6. For The Village, Yours And Ours

_Thank you everybody for taking the time to read! This one's for you, grumpypirate! But to all my usual readers, thank you, thank you as well!  
As always, if there are any issues, don't hesitate to let me know! And really, I appreciate every single review, every single second you spend putting yourself through this torture with me. Ya'll are the cats pajamas!_

 _Also, I am literally always screaming about my writing you guys. When will this nightmare end?..._

* * *

"Ugh. They take _ **forever**_." Ruffnut groans, absently shredding some petal at the entrance of the hall and tossing the remains at her brother in a fit of impatience.

From his place on the steps,  
"Hey!" Tuffnut gripes.  
He brushes off the top of his helmet and glares up pointedly at his twin, but nobody pays him much attention.

Right now, they're all too busy watching the skies.

Because the food is prepared: loaves of bread still steaming, stews bubbling over hot fires, roasts dripping with fat and crackling on spits and stuffed with nuts and berries.  
The lanterns are lit up all around the hall, casting lively shadows across the walls that leap in time with imagined music.  
The room is bright and sweet with flowers, colors scattered- a dash of pink on the tables, a sprinkle of white on the floor, and clusters of spring adorning each chair...

Everything is beautiful, and perfect, and, well, festive- just waiting for the guests of honor to arrive and grace the results of their hard work with their presence.

But, unfortunately for this motley crew, it's been four hours and no such luck just yet.

"Yeah." Snotlout snorts. "No kidding. How long does it take to ask one dumb question anyway? 'Will you marry me?' 'Yes.' Done!" he exclaims, throwing up his hands.

From the edge of the steps, Fishlegs nervously taps his fingers together.  
"Well...I guess so..." he starts. His eyes wander around skittishly as he speaks. "but generally, these kinds of things take a little more of a...I don't know, sensitive approach? A little romance." Catching Ruffnut's grimace, he lets out an uneasy giggle. "...Uh. Right, you guys?..."

Tuffnut, Ruffnut, and Snotlout only give him stupified looks like he's crazy, and, noticing the group's discouraged faces, on his way past, Hiccup's footsteps stop and he chuckles.

"Hey, we can't give up already, you guys." he says to them cheerfully. "They'll probably be back any minute now."

"Oh yeah?" Snotlout only returns spitefully. "Like when?" he demands.

And, oh. Hiccup hadn't expected him to actually **_ask_** , but everyone's staring at him now, too- waiting for an answer.

He laughs nervously.  
"Uh. Well," Hiccup shrugs, hoisting his basket of supplies higher in his hands. "like...uh...well, ha ha heh...um..."

He trails off to think for a moment then, because the truth is, he has no idea either.  
Only, too late, he's realized, he's taken Snotlout's bait and the viking is just itching for a fight, prepped and primed with four hours worth of Althea and Eret-less waiting.

"'Like, like, like'?" Snotlout demands impatiently, pushing his face closer into Hiccup's personal space with each exaggerated word. "Like when?"

With a nervous smile, Hiccup edged himself away slowly.  
"Like-" he says again.

But as he steps finally out of Snotlout's enormous shadow and back into the sunset, his green eyes suddenly catch on something: movement far in the distance, two dragons swooping into view no bigger than mice.

And then, Hiccup's heart jumps into his throat.  
They're back.

Uh-oh.

"Like, now!" Hiccup whimpers.

And suddenly, four faces follow his horrified gaze and-

"Argh!" they all shriek in unison, bodies and faces contorted in panic.

After that, everything is chaos as Tuffnut scrambles to his feet and Fishlegs crams his helmet back on his head and Hiccup hurriedly pushes everyone back through that small opening of the doors and back into the hall.

"Get your petals ready! Go, go, go!" Astrid shouts.

Everything is a flurry of activity as people rush to get to their places. Astrid's pretty sure she sees Ruffnut and Tuffnut knock heads as they go, but they grimace their way over to their places anyway and so, she lets them work through the pain on their own.

Right now, she has bigger problems to deal with.  
Namely...

"Alright, musicians, grab your things and let's go!" she calls. "Everyone else, gather outside with your pouches! And hurry!"

They do-

And then, a short half-second later, everyone's jittery with nerves and excitement as they, in a grand procession, gather together to wait for Hiccup's cue in the doorway.

When the last child has tottered their way into the crowd beside their mother, Hiccup takes a deep breath, drawing himself up tall.

"Alright, is everybody ready?" he calls.

A hundred nods, a few scattered "Yeah!"'s, but everybody in the group is smiling and Hiccup can't help but smile at the sight of them, too.  
His people.  
His village.

And even for a ridiculous occasion like this, he is... ** _proud_** to be their chief.

It had taken him a while to get to 'proud'.  
But, gods, he had done it.  
And he had done it in the exact same way that he is standing here right now:  
with his mother, Valka, at his right side, and Astrid on his left, and with the village all around him and, well, with Toothless, too of course- always leaping or bounding somewhere nearby.

Hiccup grins as the dragon beside him, in fact, does exactly that, lolling out his tongue, and Astrid laughs with Valka as she scratches the creature under the chin.

Home.  
This is his home.

And it wouldn't be his home if it were missing any single one of them.

"Alright," Hiccup says to the his village, voice strong and resounding. "Berk, let's head out!"

And then, a hundred footsteps march outside, a veritable parade, down the steps towards the plaza, and even just the rhythmic stomping of boots thumping against the ground, to them, it sounds like music.

* * *

The moment they touch down, they descend into a tumultuous sea of celebration.  
The musicians play away at their instruments with fervor, they're surrounded on all sides by congratulations.

There's applause and there's cheering, there's shouts and there's laughter, but Althea and Eret don't even seem to register it.

The dragon rider jumps down from Bloodbiter's back and Eret catches her.  
And, ignoring the world, their eyes meet each other's and at the empty, haunted look in Althea's suddenly-aged eyes, the first of three uneasy tremors runs through the people- this one small and uneasy, a mere ripple across the surface of a pond.

It travels through the crowd, from the center out, but when it runs over and through one time, everything's fine again.

Everything's fine.

Then, they see Eret, glib, pompous _**Eret**_ , grip Althea's hand tightly, a slight wrinkle in his brow as he tries to reassure her and the second tremor rushes them.

This time, only half the crowd recovers.  
And the former solidarity of the proud group of Berkians is now reduced to only disjointed currents, pushing against each other in wild opposites: two children giggling over here, while a mother whispers to a father, uneasily, over there.

And then, finally, the two riders trudge together, heavily through the people, carrying the last tremor with them as they travel from the center of the crowd, outward- silencing each and every person that they pass with the tragedy weighing in the air around them.

When that ominous silence reaches Hiccup at last, he and Astrid exchange glances, a perfect meeting of blue eyes and green.

And the both of them can feel that something's gone completely off, but even so, they wait until Althea and Eret stop before them, with matching expressions that look so tired, it's hard to believe they've only been gone a few hours.

There's an uncomfortable silence as Hiccup waits for his friends to speak.  
He wants to know what's happened so badly and yet...a part of him suspects that...he probably doesn't want to know at all...

But even so, he's a leader.  
And so, when Althea finally finds the courage to open her mouth and whisper the words,  
"...We...need to talk to you. Right now."

Hiccup's gloved hand curls into a fist and he nods.

* * *

 _"So we meet again…" the man chuckles with a nasty grin._

 _Eret waits for his father to respond, but he doesn't._

 _In fact, his father's eyes are turned quite intently on the ground before him, his entire body sagging forward and slumped, and it takes a moment before it becomes clear to Eret that the one being spoken to is...him._

 _And, oh, he's never been put on the spot quite like this before..._

 _Nervously, he wets his dry, split lips and hopes his voice doesn't crack in fear when he replies.  
_  
 _But, first...what to say?_  
 _Something safe. Something short._

 _He thinks for a long moment before,_

 _"…A-again?…" Eret finally echoes._

 _But even despite his careful planning, he must have said the very wrong thing indeed because almost immediately, his father shuts his eyes and cringes._

 _The man's face only twists with a cruel, cruel kind of sudden glee._

 _"So, the boy knows nothing." he laughs. And this time, he isn't talking to Eret.  
"You have kept him in the dark. Told him nothing of your past, your shame, your weakness."_

 _Eret's father remains silent still._  
 _But his face runs over with a kind of resigned defeat and it frightens Eret to think that never before has he heard his stoic father's silence sound so...scared._

 _But so scared of...what?_  
 _What exactly had Eret done?..._  
 _He doesn't understand._

 _And so, he just quietly stands there, a mere child between the grudge and hate of two men, not knowing what any of it means._

 _But then, in the next moment, he suddenly does._

 _"Then it is fair, I think, that we should do the same to you. Keep you foolish! Keep you down, and wondering." the man sneers, gnashing his teeth at his father. And then, he begins to grin a feral grin and he straightens as he doles out his prisoner's final sentence,  
"Go. Now."_

 _Eret's father finally moves;  
finally widens his eyes and looks up, horrified._

 _But this show of defiance only seems to please the man all the more.  
_  
 _"You **will** go, dragon trapper." he says._

 _"...But, Drago...I-" Eret's father begins._

 _"I said to go! You will not disobey me again! You kept your secrets, dragon trapper. Now the boy will keep his own. Whether he lives or dies, let it weigh on your mind. For the rest of your life! Let that show you what happens when you dare to betray a dragon master!"_

 _And then,_ _Drago lashes out_ _with his staff and sends Eret tumbling forward.  
_ _"Say goodbye to your father, boy. You will not see him again."_

 _The child is breathing quite hard now._

 _He doesn't want to go._  
 _He doesn't want to go..._  
 _He doesn't want to go!..._

 _But much too terrified to say it in words, Eret, instead, pleads only with his eyes as he ambles slowly towards his father step-by-step._

 _Fight for me._  
 _Keep me!_  
 _Make up for every other time you've ever disappointed me and just get up and fight for once, Eret begs..._

 _But his father doesn't._

 _Instead, he only bows his head down and trudges over submissively, and kneels down before his son._

 _And at the overwhelming disappointment, at the anger and the heartbreak and yet, at the pathetic sadness of losing him, too, tears spill out against Eret's cheeks, and he's finally sobbing as his father roughly presses his face into his chest to muffle the noise._

 _His last words to Eret aren't anything even near an 'I love you'._

 _Instead, he hurriedly whispers only this:_

 _"One day, son, there will come a time, a moment, a person, that will make you want to change how things are done-" he says._

 _And for the briefest second, Eret dares to hope..._

 _But then, his father grasps his chin and looks him dead in the eye, that pale blue a shock against warm amber._  
 _As big a shock as the words._

 _"Do **not** fool yourself. This is your life- it will always be your life. There is no escape, not from him. Your life is about survival now and there's room for **nothing** else, do you hear me?" his father whispers furiously. When his son doesn't answer, he grips his shoulders and says, more desperately now they're running short on their final moments, "Do you understand me, son?"_

 _Sniffling, Eret manages a nod._

 _His father relaxes.  
"Good. Always remember these words if nothing else about me, and...and you'll live." There's the shortest of pauses then. And a weak, regretful, "...That's the most I can do for you, son..."  
_  
 _With large thumbs, he wipes away at never-ending tears over and over but it's useless, a_ _nd then, much, much too soon, his father has to go._

 _"Good-bye, Eret. Good-bye..." he whispers._

 _And then, as Eret is sobbing, his father wrenches himself from his grip completely and he turns his back and sails away, never to be seen by young Eret again._

* * *

"But...we defeated him. I ki- I killed him..." Hiccup says in a small voice.

At that, Valka lays a comforting hand on her son's arm, knowing the guilt has weighed on him to this day, even despite Drago's terrible deeds.

Althea wishes she could be kind about this too.  
But she can't.

The terrible truth outweighs all her liberty to be gentle or accommodating, and she knows that the best thing she can do for them, her friends, however heartless it may seem, is to just to get them to understand, get them to prepare, get them to be ready.  
For the inevitable war that's coming for them all...

"The alpha may be dead, Hiccup, but Drago is coming!" she pleads. Then, turning to the rest of the hall, "He's alive. He's rebuilding and we have to do something!"

For a moment, the village council members all merely exchange uneasy glances amongst themselves, not quite knowing what to do.  
For them, like so many others, it isn't just a matter of whether or not they _**can**_ believe it.  
It's about whether or not they _**want**_ to believe it.  
Because who would, when they'd just barely scraped a win against Drago Bludvist the last time? And at the cost of their beloved village chief and, very nearly, all of their dragons, too...

It's a difficult thing to have to face.

And yet, before them, Althea Cross, once the black sheep of Berk continues waiting on their answer with a pleading gaze, begging them to believe her, all the while thinking to herself, ' _Someone has to..._ _Someone **has** to. __Please...'_

Althea clasps her hands together, wringing at her wrists in the heavy silence, and the council members continue exchanging glances and shifting in their chairs, daring each other to make the first move and getting absolutely nowhere, when, finally, **_finally,_**

Gobber draws himself up in his chair as he takes a deep breath.

The room grows suddenly silent.

Everybody hangs on his every word, knowing that what he says will sway the rest of them into a decision one way or the other.

He drops his jaw to speak and when he does, he says:

"Alright. So the big evil dragon master is back, then!...But why hasn't he attacked us yet, that's what i'd like to know."

Half the room snorts at his casual tone, but Althea feels so relieved she could cry.  
Gobber shoots her a wink and in response to the question, Hiccup flashes a wry smile.

"Oh, I don't know...Is there any chance that maybe he got smarter and decided to just... leave us all alone?" Hiccup offers hopefully.

"No." ten voices chorus all at once.

Because they might not all agree about Drago's current state of existence exactly, but none of them are under any illusions, either, about what kind of man the self-proclaimed dragon master is or was.

Hiccup sighs.  
"...Yeah I thought not..."

"Hiccup," Valka says, seriously. "Drago is not the type to let a defeat like that go easily. If there is one thing he cannot stand, it's being without power. He's planning something and if I know him as well as I think I do, it's likely something terrible for us, for the dragons, for us all...He's already had longer than a year to rebuild. If he really is back, we cannot afford to wait too long." she says. "If you aren't sure whether or not he's alive, check. But until you do, plan. We have to play this smart, Hiccup."

A few in the crowd nod, swayed by her wise words and, responding to their agreement,  
"Okay..." Hiccup says, thinking deeply. "Okay. Then first things first, we need to know what he wants. So, we- we need a strategy. We need to find out what he's up to, what he's doing, we need some kind of…some kind of, I don't know..." Hiccup rambles, green eyes flickering around the room in thought, but he trails suddenly off as his eyes come to rest on Althea and he's hit with a sudden lightning strike of inspiration. "...a...spy…"

Althea frowns, not quite understanding.

Then, the realization hits her.

"What? Me?" she gapes.

The plan rapidly forming in Hiccup's mind as he goes, he nods.  
"Yeah, you!" he says. "Althea, you're the only one of us he hasn't met. It's- I mean, it's a perfect plan!"

At a loss for words, Althea only swallows nervously, considering how to tell him...  
Considering whether or not she even should.

And seeing this, "...Hiccup-" Astrid cuts in quietly, flashing an uneasy glance in Althea's direction from her seat.

But he is already off.  
"No, no, just listen for a second. After the death of his alpha, Drago obviously needs more dragons. He needs more power. Then, Althea comes in with a Night Fury saying, I don't know, that you want to join up or- or, that you're an enemy of Berk or- well, we'll work out the details later, but the point is, you pretend to join him. You get on his good side and find out what he's planning. It would work, wouldn't it?"

In the silence that follows, Althea and Astrid exchange complicated looks. Eret's hand finds its way to Althea's shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze and for a while, all three of them can only hope that the others will oppose the idea.

But then, "You know, it probably would." Gobber pipes.

 _No._

"...But-" Astrid tries.

"It's risky, but intriguing..." Valka murmurs.

"Hang on-" Eret says.

"See, it's a good idea!" Hiccup says, as more and more of the people nod and murmur.

Althea sighs.  
She has to do it.  
There's no other way...  
And so,

"Yeah, I think so too." she says evenly, over the sound of all the noise. The room is suddenly quiet, startled by her support. But then, she sighs again and follows with, "I do. But...Hiccup, he...he has met me though..."

And quite clearly, that was not what Hiccup expected to hear.  
Nor Gobber. Nor Valka.  
Nor the rest of the village leaders, neither.

And seeing the flabbergasted expressions all around the room, slowly, Althea takes a deep breath, pulling from Eret's slack grip to take that hand fully in hers for strength.

From across the hall, Astrid gives her a sympathetic look; one that says, 'You don't have to...'

And Althea knows that.  
But as a member of the village, she figures it's high time that she **_did_**.

Althea takes a breath.

"You see, it...all started when I first met Eret..."

* * *

Outside, the villagers of Berk mill around without a word.

Some of them press their ears up to the door, desperate for any sign of good news and when they can just make out a word or two, they pass it around in conspiratorial whispers.

Others are sat on the steps with set creases in their brows and they've thought to themselves that there's no use in guessing on matters they know nothing of.  
But they can't help but find themselves wondering all the same, and they know by now that celebration isn't the only thing that can bring a village together.

Tragedy can do it too.

The emergency meeting stretches on an eternity.  
And in their festive garb, the villagers huddle and wait and shiver together- not just from the cold, but from the dawning realization that their celebration is, indeed, turning into yet another tragedy.

But every time there's a bright voice muffled through the hallway doors, there's still just a sliver of hope...

It's a full hour before the wide, wooden doors finally swing open.

And at the creaking and groaning of the heavy metal hinges, heads turn with rapt attention until they find the one they are so desperately looking for.

At the center of the entrance, Hiccup clears his throat to speak.

But he doesn't have to say a word for the Berkians to know that the last of their hopes are gone-  
they can already see it, written across their leader's face.

* * *

The room that was supposed to be filled with music is silent.  
The people that were supposed to be celebrating don't laugh.  
And this, the very food that was supposed to taste the best in the world, only tastes like ash and dust and dirt in their mouths.

Everywhere they look, heads are bowed, hands solemnly nursing mugs of ale and wine, and Althea and Eret don't quite know what they should do.

The great village hall is dead.

And they know that it isn't, but they can't help but feel as if somehow, it's their fault.

And not only that, but...

 _I'm sorry...I know, believe me, I know it's wrong to even think about asking you two, especially after what you just told us, okay? But if you can't do it, Eret still can. And for the sake of Berk, as chief, Althea, I have to ask...So will you think about it, please?_

That's pulling at their insides, too.  
She wants one thing, he wants another, and...well...

"...Do you...really...want to do this?..." Althea asks slowly, breaking the heavy silence finally with the timid question.

Startled, Eret looks up from stirring his stew around.

And gods...  
As his eyes meet hers, they both now realize the day's been so busy that it feels like ages since they've just looked at each other.

They're so much worse for the wear...And, he can probably make out a solid three dark rings around her eyes that hadn't been there that morning.

Eret sighs as he thinks about how best to respond, but suddenly, he can feel the gaze of a good fifty curious and still-sober Berkians, all watching them from various places around the room.

And so, he bites his tongue, and says instead,  
"Come on. Let's talk about this somewhere else."

She nods and they make their way towards the exit.

* * *

 _It's a cry so terrible; so violent and vicious and cruel and consuming that just the sound of it churns his insides hollow- it travels across his skin, the grating sound burning itself into his mind like a red hot brand and it makes him feel as if something sharp is scraping at his insides and digging those insides out until he's trembling and empty and he feels as if he's going to be sick._

 _Eret would lurch over and throw up his breakfast, probably, but the only thing that's greater than that sound, to him, is the fear._

 _And so, until the man finishes swinging his staff around in the air and throwing back his head and screaming that terrible scream, Eret just clutches at a nearby stump to keep himself propped up as he sweats and shivers through the agonizing resistance that his entire innocent being is putting up against the sheer violence of that sound._

 _When the man finally stops, Eret nearly gasps in relief.  
The air is suddenly so clear and sweet and good again, and even struck with his recent loss, Eret feels like laughing._

 _That is, he does until.._.

 _The heavy man turns and faces him again. And he pulls a dagger from his belt and steps aside to reveal..._

 _A dragon._

 _This time, Eret does gasp._

 _It's the first time he's ever seen one for real and it's..._  
 _It's small and young and frightened- trapped and alone, just like him._  
 _Its scales reflect a hundred colors against the whiteness of the snow, and its little body heaves with heavy breaths, thrumming with life and power even as little as it is._

 _It's...beautiful._

 _Mesmerized, Eret takes a small step forward and at the movement, the dragon's mouth curls into a frightening toothy grin and his deep intelligent eyes blink just once._

 _On instinct, Eret slowly reaches out a hand._

 _But then, the harsh reality of his situation cuts through his dazed wonder-_

 _"Now kill it." Drago snarls. "This is your very first test. Capture it. Take it down!"_

 _Uncertainly, Eret glances down at the heavy dagger in his hand.  
_  
 _Then, he looks at the creature._  
 _  
Then back at the dagger._

 _And for a moment, he feels the small but strong pull of a voice inside telling him that he could be something far greater; something far bigger than the dastardly thing he is becoming right now in this very moment..._

 _But then, he remembers his father's words, and he takes a breath and puffs up his little chest and  
he pushes the voice away._

 _He has to do this. He has to survive._

 _Seeing his resolve, Drago chuckles and motions for his men to release the young Rumblehorn as the boy bends his knees low to get ready to lunge._

 _But then-_

 _"Agh!"_

 _It all happens in a moment:_

 _Eret topples back at the flurry of heavy flapping of wings in his face. Something's smacking him across the mouth- a limb or a wing or a tail, and he has snow in his mouth and he's kicking and slashing, eyes shut, and scrambling around for his bearings, but when the beating finally lets up, he looks and  
the dragonling is already gone..._

 _He gapes up at it, overwhelmed by fear._  
 _Fear and embarrassment and...something else that he doesn't recognize just yet._

 _But for a moment, the wonderstruck little boy merely watches the sky, open-mouthed, limbs sprawled out in the powdery cold snow._

 _A dragon._

 _So that's a **real** dragon. _

_As young as that one had been, Eret could feel it's strength._  
 _And he's breathless.  
_  
 _But then again, in a horrible moment of dread, he realizes,_  
 _he's failed._

 _Terrified, young Eret turns an eye on the man, his new leader..._

 _But much to his surprise..._

 _Drago only chuckles._

 _And in a voice as dark as night itself,  
_ _"_ _Only a fool does not fear a dragon." he rasps. "And if you are a fool, you are of no use to me and all of my men will know that the day they tell me they are not afraid, is the day I will show them what it is to fear." Drago says, baring his teeth in a grin that sends a shudder up Eret's spine. "Remember this, dragon trapper."  
_

 _And with that, he turns around and he and his men walk._

 _After a moment, Eret hurries to follow.  
And the whole long trek across the frozen tundras, if ever a memory of gold and green and red should threaten to present itself as something good, Eret smothers it down._

 _Because fear is strength._

* * *

A strong silhouette of glimmering gold and green and red, along with jet black just beside, lies curled on the rug by the fire in a silent living room.

But, much like their riders, tonight, the dragons do not sit peaceful in the warmth and gentle serenity of their home.  
Instead, every so often, Skullcrusher will snort and blink a solemn blink and Bloodbiter will croon a worried mournful cry in return, as they continue to converse, in their own way, their fears and their worries and their pains.

Eret can't help but frown as he watches them.  
He knows, after all, that this can't be easy news.

The last time Skullcrusher had went up against Drago Bludvist, he'd lost his rider.  
And as for Bloodbiter?

Well, the consequences for her had been more obvious in Althea- in Althea's reluctance to just love her dragon because she thought she didn't deserve to...

Those kinds of wounds take a lifetime to heal from.  
But they'd started.  
Skullcrusher had found a new rider, Bloodbiter had finally gotten her old one back- they'd each gotten _ **somewhere**_ , only, now, this...

Eret sighs, running a hand through his dark hair as he turns his attention back to what Althea is saying.  
"-can you just please really think about what this could mean, Eret?"

"Look, you're frightened, Althea. I am too, everyone is! But don't you think we have to at least try?"

Althea just lets out a heavy breath at the table in response, covering her hands with her face.  
"I know you're not a coward anymore, Eret, but sometimes, gods...I wish you were." she mutters.

The words sting unexpectedly.  
And suddenly, Eret can feel his face flushing red in anger.

"Then what do you propose we do?" he demands. "Sit and watch while Drago burns this entire village to the ground?"

"What? No, Eret! You're not understanding. I want to help. I do!" Althea insists. "But last time, he captured me and the things I saw, I can't...I can't ever forget it. And the thing is, I was just some stranger to him, but if it's you, a traitor he spent years with-..."  
Suddenly, she breaks off into a horrified whisper. "Oh, Eret. What will he do to you?..."

For the first time since they've begun their argument, Eret gives pause.  
Because somehow, that's something he'd never truly considered...  
But if he admits that, the discussion is over and so, he merely shrugs.

"...About the same as you, I expect." he deflects. "Look, we'll...prepare for it. We'll find a way to get me food and then I won't have to eat it; eat... _ **them**_. And as for killing 'em...I-..." He pauses. And then, he takes a shaky breath, composes himself, and says, "...I've done it before..."

But Althea just shrugs out of his hold and begins to pace, shaking her head as her mind works through an entirely new set of problems altogether.

"No. No, he'll get at your biggest weakness, Eret. Your worst. I know you love Skullcrusher," Althea says. "But if we even bring Skullcrusher into the equation, Drago'll know that those feelings are new enough not to ruin you yet. If there's something else, he'll find it. If there's something you love, that you wouldn't be yourself without, he'll use that love against you."

There's a brief moment of silence as her mind runs through each and every thing in Eret's life, wondering what that all-important thing could be, until-

"He won't have you, Althea..."

The words are so unexpectedly soft that all of Althea's thoughts subside.  
But when her feet stop in place and she turns to look at him, he's only looking back, as openly loving as ever and finally, she can't help but soften.

But then again...she's also...well, almost embarrassed now for getting so wrapped up in her own thoughts, and so, the only thing that comes out of her mouth in response is a soft,  
"...Is that supposed to comfort me?...Cause it isn't working, you know..."

Eret chuckles.

And then, he sucks in a nervous breath and looks around at their humble home, the life they'd built together so carefully over a year.

And how changed it all seems from just a few hours before...

Because just that morning, this house- with its bed always in playful disarray, with a fireplace warm and crackling at night, with its homespun wool and hand-knit rug and elaborately painted walls, had seemed like the coziest and safest place in the world.  
It had been like there was nothing beyond this village and this house and this space, for the both of them.  
Everything and every _ **one**_ important as here and the rest of the great big world was just an outside, rife with possibilities that Eret liked to have the option to explore, but didn't altogether need anymore.

His life had been perfect bliss; perfect bliss for a good, solid year. But, now, he's realizing, it had also been ignorance.

And he'd already lived in ignorance once, for far too long...

"...I think it's high time I understood what you went through, don't you?" Eret says quietly.

Althea's face immediately crinkles in pain at the words.

"No..." she says, going to him and resting her hand against the side of his face.  
Her voice is a thin and pleading prayer now- a request, and not an unquestionable demand like it had been before.  
"No...Eret, I don't ever want you to have to understand. Once, I wanted you to know how much you hurt me, yes. I wanted you to know what Drago did. But I would never really have brought you down with me. Not like that..."

"And yet you were planning to kill me." Eret teases gently, entwining her fingers with his.

A faint blush spreads across her cheeks.  
"Er...Well...I...said so, yes. I might have thought it, too..." she mumbles. But then, Althea sighs and glances at him sheepishly. "But in the end, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't have chosen to do it..."

Eret, however, already knows this, and so, he just grins.  
"Ah. So my grand master plan to seduce you **_out_** of your revenge and _**in**_ to making me your loyal, devoted lover forever amounts to nothing then?"

Her lips quirk upward into a small smile.  
"On second thought, maybe I should have gotten a few more punches in..." she muses jokingly.

Eret chuckles. And after a moment, she joins in, but the laughter is short-lived and hollow, always overshadowed by the darkness hanging just over head, and when it trails off into nothing, the silence is suffocating.

Finally, Althea sighs.  
And then, she straightens in her seat and tries for one last stand.

"Look, Eret..." she says. "The things he does to people, they change you. And you know I don't mean to say that you're weak. He's just that powerful and i'm worried that he'll...that he'll break you beyond repair. You! As impossible and stubborn as you are...Eret, I don't want that to happen to you..." she says. "And I know that you understand him, probably better than anyone else here on Berk. And...And you've suffered." she says, laying a hand on his chest to silence him from interrupting until she's finished. "But that's still different from being his enemy. That's still different from being starved and mocked and cut and abandoned."

After a moment of consideration, Eret takes her hand in his.  
And he nods to say he's understood, but this time, it's his turn to say his piece.

And when he does, he surprises her.

"That's exactly why I want to help though, Althea..." he murmurs. "Because all of Berk is an enemy to Drago now, too, and it's better that I go and suffer than anyone else, because I already know exactly what Drago is." He smiles a sad smile then. "Besides, tell me if i'm wrong, but I, at least, have an obligation to protect them for once. Our people. Our dragons. Our home...And you?" he says, guiding her chin until he's looking at her with those amber eyes. "You, I **_want_** to protect, this time. No obligation necessary."

Althea says nothing for a very long moment and, from her wide eyes, Eret can tell she's thinking on his words, but he can't quite tell which way her heart's been set.

But just as she's drawing in a breath to answer-

 _knock knock!_

Eret and Althea both jump a mile in their chairs.

Then, hearts still pounding from the shock, they belatedly turn and frown in confusion at each other for a moment.

 _Were you expecting someone?_

 _No. And you?_

Eret shakes his head.

And so, after a few more seconds, Althea finally stands, clears her throat, and goes to the door.  
She pulls it cautiously open, but just as soon as she has-

"Althea!" _  
_

A sudden pair of arms comes lunging right at her out of nowhere and Althea goes reeling back as someone practically tackles her.

"Uh..." comes the response, but before Althea can say anything else, she sees what's waiting for her on the other side of the doorway and with Ruffnut sobbing dramatically in her arms, Althea stands there, blinking over her friend's shoulder at the rest of her misfit group of friends in surprise.

They're all standing around, looking tragic and sniffling emotionally at the entrance over something or other...  
But she can't quite figure out what. But then...

"You sh-should have told usss!" Fishlegs sniffles into a dainty handkerchief.

"Yeah, **_Althea_**. I thought we were friends. Like, come on." Tuffnut snorts.

"I can't believe you kept it a secret! Oh, man. I should just-! Oh man!" Snotlout adds, secretly wiping at manly tears. "I'll kill that Drago Bludvist! With my... ** _face_**. I'll hurt him so bad he won't ever get near you or Bloodbiter ever again!"

And then, Astrid flashes an apologetic smile as she cuts through to the front of the group and, "Looks like your secret's out. Everybody in the village knows about it now, Althea..." she says gently.

And, oh.

Well, that explains that.

But with the way they're gesturing for Eret to come over and get in on a group hug, like they're so touched by words that they couldn't have heard through any **_normal_ ** means-  
clearly, they've been eavesdropping, too.

For a moment, Althea only sighs.

But then, that's just like them and so she laughs a tired fond laugh instead, and she returns Ruffnut's hug with one of her own and as Astrid and Snotlout and the rest of them join, she takes in a shaky breath and wills herself not to cry.

Hiccup is there, too. Not as a chief, this time.  
As a friend. And he walks up to the embracing group and claps a hand on Althea's shoulder.

"Are you holding up okay?..." he asks, worriedly.

Through a gap in their legs, Bloodbiter wedges her head through and chirrups the very same question.  
And it's only now, in this moment, slightly squished and suffocated by all the people she loves, that Althea realizes,

Eret is right...

Deep down, she wants to protect these people too. She has to.  
Because despite all the ups and downs and the gossip and the whispers and the looks and everything else throughout the years, somehow, some way, they have become **_hers_** \- her people.

And she and Eret?  
They have become, truly and completely, Berk's.

* * *

 _Hope you enjoyed...SJBDFALD_


	7. For The Sun, Come Not Soon

What is happeninggggg?...  
Oh my lawdd.  
I'm sorry if it's slow and boring..I just...Ughhhh. I don't know what I was thinking to be honest.

Thank you for reading!...And as always, to my three-ish, four(?) readers, thank you all so much!  
I love ya'll. I do. Really, really.  
And I know i've still got lots of work to do and somehow, it feels like i'm regressing the more I write? Instead of getting better, because what is logic anyway...But I really appreciate you guys and all the amazing things you say! Thank youuuu!

Also, i've been listening to the music score to the movies again, which is probably why i'm able to get this chapter out so fast. But seriously, it's amazing, you guys. Amazing. 'Stoick's Ship' is the saddest thing...

* * *

 _She makes a mistake for the very first time two weeks later.  
And of course, everyone slips up sooner or later-  
nobody is perfect._

 _But up until then, Althea had decided that **she** had had to be._  
 _Because that was the only way she thought that she could, at the very least, **start** to blend back into the background. To go back to to being what she had been before- just another anonymous face in the background of everyone's lives...  
_

 _But quickly, she learns, that that isn't possible._  
 _And never is it more apparent than on that day she makes her very first mistake:_

 _She doesn't **intend** to injure anyone, and she certainly isn't **aiming** for Astrid's arm, but her hand slips on a throw and the axe ends up slicing right into the blonde-haired, blue-eyed favorite of the village's anyway._

 _Astrid only gasps in shock at the pain, at first..._

 _Althea freezes, the entire world fading black._

 _And then...blood pours from a wound in the shoulder and Astrid's crying and Althea's sweating underneath the weight of everyone's eyes staring at her in horror and blame and disgust._

 _Punishment, of course, is swift._

 _And before Althea can even gather the courage to utter an 'I'm sorry', she's swept away by Stoic for an emergency village meeting regarding the unruly, wild child of Berk: herself._

 _She sits in the corner solemnly and listens as loud voices weigh in._

 _'The child doesn't talk anymore, Stoic! It's unnatural!'_  
 _'She must be dealt with before it gets out of hand!'_  
 _'She's a danger to the other children! And who knows what she's doing locked up in that house of hers at all hours. The only time we see her is down in the arena, or at meal times and even then, she's always alone wearing that...that **irregular** expression.'_

 _With Gobber currently gone, ordered to tend to Astrid's wound, the insults come without end._

 _And they ring and echo in the hall so completely, that to Althea, it seems almost as if a hundred voices are chiming in and saying each of the many cruel words together._

 _They prick and poke and stab at her from all sides-_

 _But even so, Althea doesn't bother to respond._

 _What good would it do, anyhow?_  
 _To have an 'unnatural child' shouting and stamping for her dignity at a circle of adults who think they know better?_

 _And so, as the village meeting continues, as a table full of shouty grownups go on discussing her as if she isn't there, she looks down at the floor and she nudges at rubble and she tries to ignore what it means when they say nobody wants her._

 _A good half hour later, they ask her just one thing:  
_ _"Do you want us to put you with another family? With somebody else?"_

 _...'With somebody else...'_  
 _As if someone, anyone, would keep her and not hate her for having to do it._

 _At the ridiculousness of the idea, a feral laugh almost escape her lips before she can stop it._  
 _It only strikes her now, how funny it all seems, for all the village to hate one child when it's the dragons who are at fault..._  
 _But showing her amusement wouldn't help her reputation very much, she knows._

 _And so, she merely stifles the laughter and shakes her head, and between very uneasy glances, the verdict is reached:_

 _She's a child of the village, so she stays as she is._  
 _But no more training with the others.  
_ _If she must, she'll do it, as she does all things, alone._

 _And that's just fine with her. She doesn't like people anyhow._  
 _All their laughter is timed to be hurtful and their eyes are shifty and ill-meaning._

 _As they close the meeting with late reassurances that this is for her own good, that they're only concerned for her well-being, really, Althea only tunes them out, now._  
 _They've made it very clear how they truly feel and, even as a child, she won't be fooled._

 _But still, it hurts the whole way home..._

 _And so, of course, this is the very first day that she begins to dream it:  
_ _to dream of going away, of finding someone, somewhere, who doesn't yet know about all the things that Berkians say make her so... **bad**._

 _And when she finds them, she'll love them,  
and she'll make them love her._

 _And then, she'll leave them..._

 _Leave them before they ever find out she was never worth loving to start with._

* * *

It's the shock of a cold wet nose that jolts Althea awake the next morning.

And at that very first instant of contact, the dragon rider only gasps and sits up, bleary-eyed. Then, she begins looking this way and that, around at her surroundings, but still, in that moment, she's too tired to register much of anything and so she merely shrugs it off as a exhaustion-born hallucination and tries to fall right back to sleep.

When her eyes shut to do so, however, that cold shock is quickly followed by another rough, wet sensation running across her cheek and her arm and her hand and it quite tickles but it's familiar, too, and so before she knows it, Althea is reluctantly giggling and groaning and pushing a dragon snout away from her face, all hopes of a prolonged sleep gone.

"Alright, Alright, Bloodbiter. I'm up!" she moans. "I'm up."

The dragon lets out a pleasant trill and falls back to allow her rider time to yawn and stretch and finally sit up for good from her place sprawled out on the floor. But, in true Nightfury fashion, it's not even a full minute before, very impatiently, Bloodbiter garbles.

"Yes, alright. Good morning, you..." Althea laughs when she's finally come to sorts.

Bloodbiter chirps and practically purrs as Althea's hand scratches at her scales in what's become a customary morning greeting. And as the dragon turns happily onto the floor, Althea can't help but soften in affection at her constant companion before she finally thinks to let her attention wander idly around the room to check on the state of the others.

But, well, _ **personal** _ rude awakenings aside, everyone else seems to be exactly the way she'd left them last night.  
Only, now, scattered and dozing softly around the living room like children:

Hiccup, sleeping curled into Skullcrusher's form over there, with Astrid then curled into him...Their posture the very definition of familiarity and comfort; they make a sweet picture and Althea lets her mouth quirk upward into a brief smile before her gaze moves on.  
Fishlegs has both arms raised over here, his mouth and shirt gaping open with his stomach peeping out just a little as he dozes on the armchair with reckless abandon.  
Beside him on the ground, the twins are snoring haplessly, arms fighting for dominance over each other in their cramped corner even in their sleep.  
And Snotlout? Well, the bulky he-giant has an arm and a leg thrown over a pillow, cuddling it with a surprisingly sweet expression that he'd never be caught dead making if he were awake. Althea does a solid three minutes of contemplating before she decides to keep it a secret.  
And then, as she continues to take it in- piece-by-piece in the beginning, and then, all at once, she leans back on the palms of her hands and smiles at the peaceful sight laid out before her, knowing that even this is something she should be remembering.

Well, no, not exactly.  
Not like this.  
Something's still missing.

And right as if on cue, her eyes continue to move, unsatisfied, around the room until they finally settle on the person she always somehow finds herself looking for: Eret.

When they do, she nearly bursts into a laugh altogether.

As usual, he is sleeping gracelessly.

His cheek pressed into a fluffy pillow, a strand of hair falling into his eyes...  
He snores once, and then throws an arm over his eyes at the sound of his own noise as he turns and unconsciously gropes the space beside him for someone that isn't there- her.

And it strikes Althea so suddenly, and only now- a whole year later, that it's such a precious gesture...Precious and vulnerable and sweet...

That is when the early morning mirth finally begins to dissipate, of course, and Althea sobers and the hand that's been stroking Bloodbiter slowly comes to an absent stop, much to the dragon's chagrin.

Because in sleeping, all of their- her friends', along with Eret's- fragility is crystal clear as daylight...

Oh, in consciousness, in waking, they're strong and lively and can go on for hours, of course- laughing, talking, dreaming, inventing, comforting, ranting, arguing, commiserating, and just about everything else, by the fire in a home that they've invited themselves into.  
It was how things had gone last night.

And they're reckless and brash; a tough bunch, usually, but right now, they're all so calm, all so dear, all so small...

She is small, too.

And yet, in the coming days, they're going up against a mountain...

Althea can only sigh at the hopeless, hopeless thought, and she is still sighing when Eret's futile search for the warmth of a soft, familiar body renders him to consciousness.

When it does, he only sniffles and yawns, first, not even knowing what's woken him.

Nevertheless, when his amber eyes fall into hers, his confused frown fades and morphs instead into a pleasantly cheery, if somewhat sleepy, smile.

"Mm...Morning, dragon rider..." he mumbles, after allowing himself a long, luxurious stretch.

Althea tries for a smile.  
"...Morning." she murmurs in return.

Eret hobbles to his feet then, still groggy as he walks, to sit beside her and drop a customary morning kiss onto her head, but when he sees her expression, he stops short and frowns.

"Everything alright?"

Dumbfounded, Althea can only choke out a laugh at that.

And she wants so badly to say no...  
She wants so badly for a million things- for Eret to take back his decision, for him to be selfish and just stay home because she doesn't have the confidence that they can do what they need to do and get through this disaster without slipping up, not even once. (Because against Drago Bludvist, once is one time too many.)

She wants for them to never have gone back to that _**place**_ to begin with, she wants for someone else to take this burden because _**they** _ already carry too much, she wants- deep in her heart of hearts and...maybe just for a moment...she wants to go back to being who she used to be, the girl who could drop every single one of her problems on a sporadic whim and just run- run and fly and never come back...

She _**wants**_ a lot...  
But...  
Althea already knows that, no matter how hard she wishes, no matter how hard she hopes, she _**can't**_.  
And she also knows that right now, she can't be the soft, scared person that she was just last night.  
The time for that is past.

And so, she merely takes a deep breath, forces a half-smile, and, says,  
"When Ruffnut stops snoring, it will be."

Eret chuckles, but it sounds sad and hollow because he can read between the lines.

And so he takes her hand tightly in his before he says light-heartedly,  
"Right. Well, we'd better see about waking her then."  
But as he goes, he pauses, makes the mistake of thinking on what they now need to do, too, and then adds, more solemnly, "...It's about time we headed down to the village hall anyway."

* * *

They are, of course, all settled in the great hall, sharing an early breakfast of bread and cheese while the rest of the village continues to sleep (albeit, not very peacefully given the news they'd heard the day before), when Hiccup dares to ask again.

And here, it's quiet and empty and there are few prying eyes and ears around them and so, this is the spot they had chosen to finally get down to business.  
And things really are all-business now.

"Once you're in this, sorry Eret, but...I can't let you back out." Hiccup begins, unsmiling. "So, i'm gonna ask you this one last time, okay? Are you both _ **sure** _ your answer's still the same?..."

After an uneasy exchange of glances along with a deep breath, Althea and Eret nod.

Everybody breathes a visible sigh of relief,  
And it's only then that Hiccup finally accepts their answer in full.

"Okay then, first things first," Hiccups says. "what do we already know."  
He unfurls a large piece of parchment, stretches it across the table, and waits, with a piece of charcoal in hand, for suggestions.

"Uhh. Nothing." Ruffnut snorts after a moment.

Astrid frowns at this.

"Well, it's true." the twin insists. "The whole point of sending Eret back is for information. That means, uh, we don't have any. Duh."

"You're so right." Tuffnut agrees. Then, clutching at a sickly stomach, "Ugh. I don't like agreeing with you. This is not a good feeling!"

Ruffnut just sticks her tongue out at him and Astrid sighs.

"Okay, okay, calm down, you guys." she says. "What I think Hiccup meant to say is, what do we already know about Drago that'll make it easier for Eret to get in, and then get back out. _**Alive**_."

"Oh...Uh..."

The twins just shrug.

"Oh, oh! He has Skullcrusher!" Fishlegs chimes then. "A Rumblehorn, tracker class, attack level: 11, shot limit: 4, speed level: 7, and-"

"Woah there. Hang on." Eret interrupts at that, a deep crease between his brows. "There is no bleeding way that i'm bringing Skullcrusher in there with me."

"What? Why?" Fishlegs asks.  
And indeed, even the stoic dragon, Eret's constant lurking companion, preens his scales from the corner of the room indignantly.

They are dragon and rider.  
Strong by design, bonded by tragedy, and made inseparable ever since.  
And every danger in their life, they are supposed to face together.  
It's a rider's way.

But Eret only avoids the creature's eye, guiltily.  
It may be selfish of him, but...he will _**not** _ put Skullcrusher in this kind of danger.  
He can't.  
He may die, he may fail, but this dragon, with its mysterious and unquestionable devotion to him, has to live on.

Seeing the expression on his face, of course, Althea immediately understands.  
And so, despite every cell in her body that's practically screaming at her to do otherwise, she comes to a decision.

"He can take Bloodbiter... _ **We**..._ can take Bloodbiter."

At the suggestion, everybody looks at her, wide-eyed.  
Given what they know of her now, this is the very last thing they'd expected to hear.  
And at first, they think they might be hearing things. But then,

"You are not _**both**_ going, Althea."  
"There's no way!"  
"Are you crazy?!"  
"And we can't just _**give** _ Drago Bludvist a Nightfur-"

But, she stands firm.

"I won't be _ **giving**_ Bloodbiter to anyone." she says, loudly.

They frown, confused, and settle into silence.  
"...What do you mean?"

"...I think...I think I have an idea..."

* * *

For the next few days, planning consumes them all.

Without any of their notice, in fact, day becomes night becomes day becomes night and so on and so forth, again and again, as Eret and Althea and Hiccup and all of the rest, corner themselves off in their usual section of the great hall, plotting and planning in shifts, with maps and books and diagrams of all kinds spread out all over the table.  
The core group of it, of course, is Eret, Althea, Hiccup, and Astrid.  
But Snotlout, Gobber, Fishlegs, Tuffnut, Ruffnut, and especially Valka, make regular visits too, offering tidbits of advice here and there whenever they can.

It's not always a calm, peaceful, diplomatic discussion to be sure.  
And as the days go by, everybody becomes progressively more exhausted; progressively more irritable, high-strung, and tempers are cut much shorter than they usually are.  
Constant watch of Drago's fortress has yielded next to nothing. Not to mention that the process itself is draining: trying to think the way Drago would think, trying to imagine all the dark, chilling possibilities...  
When they can sleep at all, they only do it for a few hours at a time, curled in to either a quilt, or the warmth of their dragons in the far end of the room while the others continue in hushed whispers.

All the mundane, day-to-day of Berk, for them, is done.  
And now, every day is a drill of worries and horrible 'what-if's', and the effects of their stress, pass on to each person they meet until the entire village is looking baggy-eyed and weary.

Still, they press on, thinking and dreaming of nothing else until-

One night, during a brief hour-long break in which Eret has returned home to bathe, he is hurriedly digging through his drawers for a change of clothes when he comes across **_it_** again.

He doesn't notice it immediately, but when his hand brushes against the familiar, cool leather of its container, his entire body goes completely still at the screaming shock of it all that feels so much like waking from a dream.

Slowly, and still just a little bit dazed, he reaches out for the object, feels the weight of it in his hands...  
Then, he loosens the clasp, and tips it onto his palm and, from the opening of the pouch, a sad, forgotten little ring tumbles out into the palm of his hand.

It gleams so ridiculously bright in the wake of all the darkness...

And for a moment, had...had he truly... ** _forgotten_**?...All about this ring, all about what he had been wanting, practically forever, to do?...  
Was Drago's return bleeding so much into their lives already?...

Eret asks himself these questions over and over, but he doesn't like the answer.

And so, he just secures the ring onto a tie on his armguard and tucks it in beside his skin, and he vows never to forget it again.

* * *

 _It's summer and it's hot and Gobber has brought them all to the glade to play.  
Althea is there, too, for once.  
And she can hardly believe she's really standing there with the other children close by for the first time in months._

 _The other parents hadn't liked the idea too much, of course._  
 _She is still prohibited from training, after all._

 _But, 'This isn't training, it's play!', Gobber had insisted._  
 _And over the course of the weeks, Stoic had grown a bit softer towards her too, perhaps, in light of the fact that she is not the only child in the village that people gossip about any longer._

 _In fact, right now, there's a noticeable gap between where she is standing, and where the others are._  
 _But, there's a noticeable gap between the others and Hiccup, too, and so Althea thinks that maybe today, things won't be so bad._

 _And they aren't._  
 _Not really._

 _Astrid seems to have forgotten all about the injury to her arm, and the others don't harm her. But Hiccup spends all his time trying to get in good with the others and Gobber spends all his time singing to himself and Ruffnut and Tuffnut and Snotlout and Fishlegs spend all their time awkwardly dodging Althea's gaze, that, in the end, it's like she isn't there at all._

 _And so, Althea just sits herself on a stump and kicks some stones into the lake, telling herself that if she acts happy, one day, she will be._

* * *

"Eret…What are we doing here?"

Two weeks have passed, and as much of the planning and the plotting and everything else that they could possibly do, is done.  
They've burned out quite entirely.  
And it's up to fate to be kind to them, now.

Their faces are gaunt and weary.

The big day is tomorrow,  
And yet...

For some reason, just twenty-four hours away from certain death and danger, Althea is...standing at the shore of a lake, being forcibly held in place by two hands on her shoulders, and being made to stare at a golden afternoon sun bleed through the leaves of the trees that grow on the high stone cliffs that surround them and reflect off of the still water.

It's a pretty view.  
But Eret has shown her quite a lot of those recently, particularly back on the day this whole disaster started, and so the question repeats itself:  
"What are we doing here?"

In response to that, Eret, however, only chuckles. And then, he spins her around to face him and says possibly the most nonsensical thing.  
"We," he says, "are here to have **_fun_**."

Althea frowns.  
And she looks confused for a fleeting moment, but even then, her hands are jittering, her shoulders are hunched, and she's staring around, paranoid, thoughts more distracted than anything else, only half-listening.

It hurts him to see it- hurts more that he couldn't stop it.  
And hurts most that he'd been so distracted by the long hours spent planning that he'd neglected to even see it.  
This slow downward spiral, Althea slowly slipping back into the person she used to be...

But it gives him his resolve, too.  
Makes him more certain than anything that he is doing the right thing by playing his part in finishing this business with Drago for good.  
And this time, whatever the cost, he'll leave no loose ends.

Gently, Eret catches her by the chin and tips her head up to ground her focus only on him.  
"And besides, i'm the one who's supposed to look as if i've been beaten down, Althea." he murmurs. "Not you. So stop looking as if you're going to die, will you?..."

Bloodbiter tips her head in agreement and nudges her rider on the leg, and Althea tries to smile to comfort them both.  
Then, she looks back at Eret.

"Alright. But...fun?" she echoes.

Eret laughs.  
"Fun." he repeats. Then, he nods towards the lake and, "Looks refreshing anyway." he grins meaningfully, tugging off his shirt.

And at the unexpected action, Althea's attention _ **is**_ now fully drawn only on him; on his sculpted torso and his defined arms, on the way he's smirking and at the way he's-...  
oh no.  
-edging towards her; threatening her with the impending danger of being tossed into a freezing body of water.

The meaning of his words hits her only then and immediately, she is on edge.

"Eret…." she says dangerously. "No…"

Eret only laughs.

"No, no. Eret, no. Don't you dare-!" Althea says again.

But before she can stop him, he is already lunging at her and in one swift move-

"Gah!"  
 _  
SPLASH!_

They both end up toppling into the water, the shock of icy cold running through them head-to-toe, immediately clearing their minds of any bleary tiredness, pushing every other thought other than "Cold!" far away and out of their minds.

Althea surfaces a moment later, spluttering and gasping for air.

"Eret!" she fumes, lifting an arm to whack him across his stupid bare chest. "I'm still fully clothed, you know!"

"So take some layers off! They'll dry." comes the cheerful answer, but the man himself is already swimming to the far end of the lake, fearing retaliation.

Even so, Althea sees her chance for vengeance.  
Just, probably not the kind he's expecting.  
And so she narrows her eyes at him and makes a show of looking suspicious.

Step one: the hook.  
"Oh, I see..." she calls to him pointedly.  
"See what?" Eret calls back, confused.

Step two: the bait.  
"Dragon rider, are you...just trying to get me to take my clothes off?..."  
"I-...What? I- no! I mean, I wouldn't- I-" he blusters. "How- How did we get here...I-"

Step three: the switch.  
"-Because," and suddenly she advances on him, cutting smoothly through the water, and grins. "...I will, you know."

Eret freezes.

Then, slowly, his entire face goes bright red, save for his blue tattoos.

"Or you could." she murmurs.

He swallows hard as she grabs him by the wrist and pulls him closer in.  
But just as his hand is about to reach for her vest, she grins and-  
"Jump, Skullcrusher!" she shouts, pushing away.

"Huh?" says Eret, but no sooner has the word left his lips, when he realizes he's right in the way of an...inbound Rumblehorn.

Oh great Odin.

"No...No, wait!" Eret cries. "Skullcr-"

But, ignoring his rider, and very happily, Skullcrusher merely leaps in right on top of his rider and Althea laughs as near the entire small lake tilts and sways after a huge implosion splashes water probably clear across the forest.

With an ink black paw, Bloodbiter wipes a few droplets of water from her own face.

And when Eret comes back up for air, his hair is a mess and he's struggling to stay afloat as Skullcrusher bumps and nudges him around like a bath toy.

With a huff, the man smooths his dark hair back.

"Alright, laugh while you can!" he declares to Althea. And then, he grins, too. "Because now, you're right in the perfect place."

Althea frowns.  
"What do you mean?"

And then, "Bloodbiter!" Eret yells.

With a pleasant chirrup, the Nightfury leaps, and Althea shrieks, and in this way, the two dragons and the two riders spend a much-needed afternoon together- full of laughter, full of love.

* * *

The sun is practically setting when, at long last, they drag themselves back to shore.  
And they're tired as anything and still wet to boot, but they're happy, too.

A restful kind of happy; a kind that makes them want to sit on the shore and watch the sun finally dip below the horizon in their last moments, and so, that's exactly what they do.

Althea perches herself against Bloodbiter's side and takes a deep breath, and Eret sees her, looking more herself than she's looked in weeks, even with black ringlets of hair clinging to her face and neck, beadlets of water still running down her cheek.

In the golden light, she is beautiful.

To him, she was always beautiful...  
Always.  
Even when she was making a fool of him in front of all his men, breaking his carefully constructed persona of confidence.  
Even when she was outsmarting him day after day, making his work difficult, bringing down his trapping numbers, and rendering him worthy of punishment for his failures to Drago Bludvist.

Even when she hated him...  
She was beautiful.

Because through each painful sting of the whip or blow of Drago's staff, through each instance of doubt and fear and isolation, those short little meetings with her had been brief, heavenly glimpses of everything that he, as a child, had ever wanted.

Once it had gotten to be too much, that fear still lived in him and he'd failed her then.  
But after what they'd suffered, after how they'd fought with everything they had to get right here, he knows he can't fail her again.

And suddenly, he's overwhelmed with the realization that all of this, if he does, could be gone...

So, in hopes that that doesn't happen,  
"Althea…" says Eret quietly, breaking what had been a calm, peaceful silence. "...I have something for you."

Confused, Althea just looks at him, but in response, he rummages through the pocket of his vest, takes her hand, and places in it, a small leather pouch.  
He does not, however, pull his hand away once he hands it over.

And with his hand still resting over hers, she glances at him, questioningly.

"But," he continues. "you can't open it. Not until this is all over. Not until we come back. Not until we're safe and sound and back together." Eret says with conviction.  
He pauses. Then, "...Or..." he continues, less certainly. "Or..."  
But from there, he trails off because it's much too difficult to say. Althea, however, already knows how he meant to finish.

Like this:  
 _Or until i'm dead._

Althea's face crinkles at the mere possibility, but she sniffles to cover the threat of crying and nods.  
"I won't..." she promises, voice a hoarse whisper. Her hand tightens around his. "Eret, I won't."

"Keep it with you. Just like this…"

"I will, I swear it."

With a nod, he finally pulls his hand away. And as Althea tucks the pouch safely and soundly away in her vest, close to her heart, Eret thinks to himself...

Maybe the promise was more for him than anything else.  
Something to look forward to.  
Something to fight for.

Because if Althea ever did open the pouch, chances are, she still wouldn't know.  
It's been filled to the top with petals.

But in the very bottom, as heavy as his heart, is the ring.

Well, one of them.  
His.  
Hers is still tucked into his armguard.

Because maybe, just maybe, keeping some small piece of each other nearby, it'll bring them some hope and keep them safe.

* * *

When they walk home, people stop, pausing in their work to watch them pass by in the dim glow of the dragon lanterns that line the pathways.  
And there are a million emotions running conflicted across each of the villager's faces: regret, reverence, and pity, the greatest amongst them.

But still, nobody speaks, because what could they say?

Their relationships with Althea and Eret had been on the mend for some time, but now, as soon as it was happening, it could very well be over.  
And how does one express such a petty regret to someone risking their life for you?...

And so, they merely let them pass.  
On and on until finally, the dragon riders reach Althea's home, though it could very well be called his, too.

That night, they lie in bed, candles burning dim in Althea's bedroom.

Their arms are crossed together, hands clasped as they lie face-to-face: they, the only things to stop themselves from counting each miserable second down in their heads alone.

But the sooner they fall asleep, the sooner tomorrow comes anyway...

And so,

"What are you thinking about?" Eret murmurs, in a quiet low voice.

"Hm? Oh...I'm thinking..." Althea answers. "I'm thinking..."  
 _Please don't die._.., she wants to say.

But instead, she tries to smile and, "...I'm thinking about how I should just let you sleep...Instead of attacking you very improperly the way I want to." she teases.

Eret grins then and he shifts over to holds out his arms, welcomingly.

"So attack me then." he laughs. And then, his tone softens and he runs a tender hand across her cheek. "I'm yours..." he says.

She smiles, wondering how she'll ever be without this ridiculous man...

And then, true to her word, she leans in and presses her lips against his.

Night becomes dawn.  
Dawn becomes day.

And soon, they will have to face that terrible sun.

But for now, still deep in the throes of the dark,

Every kiss is desperate,  
Every 'I love you' lingers,  
And every small touch, every short gasp, is eager and wanting, careful yet aching, and they do nothing to hide the clear _need_ that they have for the softness and safety of each other's arms.

* * *

 _Ermm...I have no excuses for this...  
Sorry..._


	8. For The Darkness, Closing In

_I'm so sorry for the long wait everyone! Writing has been hard...A lot of things have been, so i'm trying to get back into the swing of things! I've been dealing with some stuff and just...ugh.  
Anyway, I hope you're all doing well, and i'm sorry this chapter is a little bleak...I guess I put too much of my current life outlook in this particular chapter because yikes but like...whew...Life aint easy, s'all i'm saying._

 _Also, I have no idea what's going on with line breaks anymore. I always add them in and then they're justgone, jfc._  
 _But i'm sorry if this chapter is kinda off and just not all that great? I'm always open to feedback so please do let me know what you think, if I need to fix anything, etc. I love you and appreciate you all! Every single one of you! And don't forget, if you ever need to talk to a stranger about life and things, i'm here._

* * *

The next day, it is Eret who wakes first.  
Except, more than waking, really, it is closer to the dead being drawn to life.

From the midst of a deep consuming blackness that he **_feels_** all around him, the first drops of an icy rain begin to patter lightly against the roof somewhere and at once, he stirs.

His swollen, tired eyes fold slowly open, still heavy with missed sleep, and his vision is murky and dark.  
He takes a deep breath and the air seeps through his lungs like air passing through a damp, old dusty filter with an unpleasant groan and wheeze. He flexes and relaxes his body with a groan, but afterward, his muscles just sink back down into the mattress- depressed, deformed, and lifeless...

It is as if every pore on his body already knows.

Today is the day.

Feeling his chest tighten, his stomach sink, Eret lays an arm over his shut eyes and swallows down a lump in his throat at remembering.  
And then, for a long moment, he stays like that.  
Just letting it weigh him down.

The sky outside the window, at least, seems to mirror his feelings- all gloom and grey, pushing its dark into their home, into their bedroom, rendering both him and Althea mere silhouettes, faint white outlines in the sheets against the blackness...

But, he can still feel her warmth beside him.

And chasing that one small tether to hope, Eret runs his fingers across the smooth satiny surface of Althea's shoulder, the soft slope of her cheek, the silk threads of her hair, in faint, gentle strokes back and forth as she continues to slumber on his arm beside him.

Because he can.

At least, in this moment...

And suddenly, that is when one particular thought strikes him strong and clear through all his other absent musings.  
A wonder- of how it ever could have been possible for them to meet.  
Against the unlikeliest of odds, for that young naive Eret to grow up and gain everything he'd ever once hoped for- his life, his freedom, his laughter, a love...

And oh, such a love it is...

Setting his soft gaze on her face, where her deep, even breaths stir the few tendrils of hair falling against her lips, Eret slowly props himself up on an arm to lean in and press there a gentle, light-as-air kiss.  
When he pulls back, he pauses for a moment to watch her sigh and squirm in contentment.

And then, he leans in and does it again.  
And again. And again and again and again before he gives up all restraint and just nuzzles his nose into the crook of her shoulder and squeezes her tight to his chest because he can't help it.

Somewhere amidst the flurry of kisses and nuzzles, she wakes.  
And for her, it is not like coming back from the dead at all.  
So different from him, she giggles sleepily. And then, she giggles not-so-sleepily before she finally blinks her eyes open, now laughing quite brightly, and squeals, "That tickles Eret!"

In response, Eret chuckles.

But not a second later his brows are back to furrowing and his eyes are weighed with sadness as he looks down at her and smooths the back of his hand against the side of her face, taking in every single detail that he possibly can.  
It is a long moment before he speaks.

"...I love you, you know..."

Althea blinks at him, first surprised by his tragic demeanor.

But then, the reality of what today is, what it **_means_** , comes back, and whatever sense of morning mirth she might have been feeling fades from her completely.

In the end, all she can do is nod in acceptance, closing her eyes to swallow down the watery tears that seep forward because she can't quite manage words.  
But, after a moment passes, she looks at him again, and this time, tries to smile.

"...And I love you..." she whispers hoarsely.

"Now and forever-"

"-until the end of our days..."

Eret nods, finally resting the fore of his head against hers and once again, their eyes flutter shut, so weary are they already...

But even still, their hands find each other's and they entangle their fingers together in promise:  
To fight.  
Fight with all that they have to whatever bitter end awaits them.

* * *

It never crosses either of their minds to forget what kind of day it is, exactly.  
But, if there was ever a danger, the morning they spend in the village would have surely reminded them without issue.

Because as it so happens, today, wherever they go, whatever they do, whatever their _**own**_ dispositions, they're always met in turn with, er, **_that-_** hundreds of identical stares, all haunted, all pitying, all regretful, and all tailing them as they go about their business.

People begin their days as usual only to stop when they first spot them.  
They hold hands to hearts and give soft "Oh..."'s of tragic feeling as their things droop, forgotten in their hands, and then they just stare as they pass by, their feet eventually following their thoughts.

By the time they've both reached the stables so that Althea can prepare her dragon and Eret can say goodbye to his, in fact, they've amassed quite a following and truth be told, it makes it rather difficult for the two of them to go about their business with any sense of ease.

Just as Althea is wondering what to do about it, however, a blessing-  
a sudden voice, or rather pair of voices, cuts right through the crowd.

"Ugh. Go paint a picture! It'll last longer!"

A gleeful snicker. "Yeah!"

The villagers all jump in surprise as Ruffnut and Tuffnut, followed by Hiccup and Toothless and all the rest of the crew file in through the large opening of the cave together.

They cut right through the crowd with ease, but at Ruffnut's crass outburst, Astrid shoots her a hard look before jumping in herself, much more diplomatically,

"Alright, everyone. Give it a rest. Eret and Althea aren't even leaving yet and you'll get to see them off when they do so let's break it up. Alright?"

And when even that doesn't work, one low growl from Toothless does the trick just fine.

Perhaps a little contritely, the villagers finally scatter and when they do, Althea breathes a sigh of relief.

"Thanks..." she says as her friends make their approach.

Astrid nods.

"...Are you two just about ready?" Hiccups asks.

Althea considers this as she glances over to where Eret, oblivious to everything else, is still stroking Skullcrusher's muzzle and talking in low affectionate tones in order to urge the dragon to calm down- to stop fighting his constraints and just _**stay**_.

The creature itself doesn't listen.  
It croons mournfully, desperately fighting against its confines, kicking and snarling and wrestling against its iron shackles with all its strength.

He had, of course, been put into a cage, at first, but after his endless and futile attempts of escape, of slamming his body repeatedly against the bars without end, they'd had to move him.

Skullcrusher doesn't understand why he has to stay behind- or perhaps he doesn't want to, and coming from such a usually stoic beast, it only hurts them to see it all the more...

"...Hey, Althea, i'm s-...sorry it had to be you guys." Hiccup says quietly.

And she knows, by the glassy green of his earnest eyes, that he means it, so Althea just shakes her head.  
"Better us than any one of you..." she answers.

Fishlegs sniffles. And then, he bawls and Althea laughs weakly as she's pulled into a very wet hug and the large man sobs a puddle into her shoulder.

"We're going to come back, Fishlegs..." she offers, gently patting his back.

But the silence she gets in response tells her that they believe that almost as much as she does.

Perhaps sensing it, Astrid steps up, lays a solemn hand on her shoulder.

"...We're with you, you know." the viking says. "Every step of the way."

"Yeah..."

Althea looks at them, her very best and only friends...  
And she works to memorize this moment, all their hopes and dreams until, from the back corner, Eret finally rises to his feet, forcing himself to turn away from his dragon without looking back.

He pushes past them and hurries out the door of the cave, even despite his dragon crying out after him, and seeing brief tears shine on his face on his way out, Fishlegs arms around Althea slacken.

"...We should go." Althea murmurs.

The others don't look at her when they agree.  
"Yeah..."

* * *

He's been silent for most of the day, and Althea knows she can't do much about that.  
She is not Skullcrusher.  
And the only thing that would help him in this particular instance, is the dragon itself.

So instead, she covers for him.  
She makes excuses for his silence, talks for him when he can't, and lets him mull over the absence until he feels better.

Bloodbiter helps a little, she thinks.  
The way the Nightfury nudges his hand and nuzzles his leg and licks and chirrups and rolls around until Eret finally laughs.

When he finally pulls himself out of it and looks at her during their midday meal, he sends her a silent apology for being so absent.  
She just shakes her head- _I understand_ , and returns her attention to the conversation at hand.

"Keep to the plan. Just keep to the plan and all will be right as rain before you know it, eh, Althea?" Gobber says, pounding her on the shoulder with a hook on which is speared an entire roast chicken.

Althea tries for a small smile, even despite her unsettled stomach and the brand new smear of chicken grease on her shoulder, but Valka just snorts.

"Please. There is no _**planning**_ with a man like Drago Bludvist. Not if you know full well you'll be waltzing right through the mad man's front door!" Valka answers shortly.

"Ohh. I take it you're of the mind we should head straight into battle then? With no information on what he wants or what he's doing?" Gobber scoffs with a dramatic wave of his hand.

Valka narrows her eyes at the sarcasm in his tone, but presses her lips into a thin line and finally sighs.  
"...No. I'm not daft, Gobber. I know that...isn't possible. Yet. I just don't see how we ever agreed that two- two _**c** ** _h_ ildren **_should be put into the most dangerous position possible. **_We_** should be protecting _**them**_ , not the other way around!"

At that one word, suddenly, everyone lapses into silence, into stillness, and uneasily, they exchanges uncomfortable looks around the table until it falls on Hiccup to say something.

He tentatively clears his throat.  
"Uh, hey, mom?..." he says gently. "I know you're worried and all, but they, uh...aren't kids, you know. Althea and Eret. **_We're_ ** not..."

Valka's eyes widen in surprise as her son trails off.  
But then, she looks around the table at everyone's faces and she finally softens in a sad sort of way, stroking Hiccup's face with the tips of her fingers.

"Oh, Hiccup...To us, you always are..." she murmurs. "To us, all of you, every single one...you're-..."

But she doesn't get to finish.

Because somewhere far away, the village time piece sounds one, and after the bell echoes, deep and chilling across the hills and valleys, Valka can only shut her eyes in pain instead.

"Come on..." Gobber says to her, much more quietly than before. "Least we could do is see 'em off..."

Valka nods, dropping her hands, and then, one-by-one, everybody rises and makes their way, heavy and glum like a funeral march, down and down towards the dreaded docks.

* * *

The entire village is here.

And not unlike before, they're staring at them with gaunt, haunted faces- only this time, some of them are even ever-so respectfully shedding tears into shirt sleeves and handkerchiefs and whatever else they have on hand.  
All along the front, Althea's students clutch at their parents and wail...Their parents, red-eyed, nod and comfort and there's Mrs. Ack and Bucket and Mulch and Mildew and my, oh, my...

How touching a sight it all would be if this were for anything ** _except_** for what it actually is...

And so, instead, it's only frightening. Instead, it's only gut-wrenching and heartbreaking and sad as anything to see them all, the people of Berk huddled on that small little pier to say goodbye like they won't be coming back...

After a series of intimate chirps and nuzzles, Bloodbiter croons mournfully, then parts ways from where she's been saying goodbye to Toothless and she glides across the docks to her rider's side.  
And after giving her dragon a small pat on the nose, Althea swallows nervously at what she knows is the moment to address the people.

But she doesn't know what to say.  
Because they've never exactly loved her, true, and yet, they're **_here._**

"Um...I guess...I...I can only ask..." she begins.

It comes out a weak, raspy whisper.

She clears her throat and tries to wet her lips before she tries again.  
"That you watch for us...Er- wait...for us...and..."

Again, the words die on her lips. And now she's breaking out into a sweat at the pressure, and she's looking around uncertain, and still the village does not respond.

It doesn't.

...At least not at first.

But then, out of nowhere, a small voice, high and warbly rises up amidst the crowd...

And, remarkably enough, it begins to **_sing_** \- a tune solemn and slow.

 _'Watch for us, wait for us:_  
 _The lovers to return.'_

And then, both Althea and Eret watch in astonishment as that voice is joined by two, and then three, and then ten, and then fifty and on and on, until they're a few good hundred strong all singing the words together.

 _T'was spoke the day they left us,  
Out by the sails and sterns.  
_

 _The sea was still, not for a moment,_  
 _It tossed and then it turned,_  
 _Just like the hearts of every one,_  
 _Gathered there to mourn.  
_

 _Off went the silver helmets,_  
 _And deep the parting bow,_  
 _Rose up the hundred voices!_  
 _To sing the parting vow:_

 _We'll watch for you, we'll wait for you,_  
 _The fire shall always burn_  
 _In Berk, for them, the lovers,_  
 _And for their safe return.  
_

 _This we'll keep a promise,_  
 _Until our dying day._  
 _And gods be with them,_  
 _Until such time as we can come to say,_

 _Break out the casks!_  
 _Dance and sing,_  
 _Let the music play!_

 _For the watch and wait is over,_  
 _And the lovers have returned!_

At the end of it, there are tears in both the eyes of Althea and Eret, as well as everybody beside as they face each other in the most honest way that the Berkians know how- helmets off, heads ducked down in song.

And then, as natural as breathing, Astrid steps forward, as she alway is the first to do, and whispers to Althea through a hug, "If- **_when_** you find out what Drago's up to, we'll see you again..."

Althea nods as she squeezes Astrid tight.

And then, Astrid passes to Eret and one-by-one, all of their closest friends step up to do the same.

To say goodbye...

Not forever, of course.  
Never that...

But just...for now.  
Until they meet again.

"Hey. If it's ever too much, you come right back, alright, you guys?" Hiccups says.

Toothless chirrups and nudges them until they're about to fall over.

Brynjar bawls and shouts he's sorry as he dives right into Eret's arms.

Fishlegs gives them a lucky stitched handkerchief. Snotlout pretends to be tough but cries as soon as he faces them, and so on and so forth until all the villagers have come and gone, that is, except for...

Gobber gives them a toothy, half-hearted grin as he takes a deep breath, and then slowly limps forward for his turn.

He goes to Althea first, and he lays his hook upon her shoulder and he says...

"...Your parents would be right proud of you no matter what, I think. But today, you look more like them than ever."

Althea shakes her head, wanting to say that, no. She doesn't feel like them at all. She couldn't be because she knows that she, as afraid as she feels, is only a hopeless coward and somewhat of a phony.  
But she can't say anything for the fresh tears filling her eyes.  
The tears that don't actually fall, however, until,

"Not that my opinion counts for anything, of course. But, well, I suppose I always, ah...thought of you as a sort of daughter myself. And so...You know...Well..." Gobber chuckles sheepishly.  
And then, all of a sudden, he clears his throat and stands up taller, no hint of sentimentality. "Look, what i'm sayin' is, you best remember everything I taught you, Cross. Because I haven't spent the last good years of my life training you little ones for nothing!"

Althea laughs, an odd choked laugh through the weeping.  
"...I'll make you proud." she promises.  
And then, before it's too late and she loses her chance and she regrets it forever, she adds, "And...And for the record...I remember...everything you did for me. When I was little and even now and if I ever felt like anyone in the world was a father to me..." she swallows down a lump in her throat. "it's you...Thank you, Gobber..." she whispers.

At that, after a moment of surprise, the man offers an embarrassed smile as he timidly scratches his head with his hook and chuckles.  
"Well...That's all right then..." he says, nodding. And with a pained smile, he finally gives her a hug which she returns full-force.

After that, it's Eret's turn.  
And to him, Gobber pats him on the back and says, "You come back now, you hear?"

Eret attempts a smirk.  
"Oh, you know I always will, old man. After all, I am the best dragon rider around."

Gobber knocks him upside the head with a huff.  
"You keep on with that same nonsense and the god of death won't want you even if you **_do_** go knocking at her door."

Eret laughs, only this time, it's weak. Not like him at all, and when he speaks, his voice is quiet.  
"...I'd hope not. Because I, for one, know i'm not ready to go anywhere just yet."  
And then he lifts his hand and taps at his armguard where the ring is safe and sound. "So. You just worry about taking good care of ol' Skullcrusher for me, yeah?..."

Gobber chuckles- almost sadly.  
But, he reigns it in and after one last pat on the shoulder, he hobbles away and it is done.

Eret takes a deep breath and beside him, Althea does the same.  
Then, they look at each other at the very same time, all dread and fear, and they entwine their hands and go to where the dragon is waiting- Bloodbiter, their dark doorway to a cold, lonely, frightening world...

As they help each other onto the dragon's back, one after the other, and settle down, Berk watches them the entire time, steadfast and steely and true to their word.

And even as Eret and Althea give them that final nod and Bloodbiter lifts up into the sky, they don't dare to look away.

For in hope and in grief, and all things inbetween,  
all of their hearts go with them...

* * *

 _Iron. Chains. Spikes.  
Black on the horizon._

 _Young Eret looks uneasily at the men around him as they row and paddle their way ever-nearer to that sharp-edged structure rising out of the snow and ice- a perfect picture of pitch black angles cutting into clear, pure white._

 _Everything around him lately is black.  
Bleak.  
Silent.  
Or wors_ _e, and he's never felt so alone in his life...  
_ _He didn't know that was even possible._

 _But even more than that, he's just terrified.  
Terrified of Drago. Of dragons. Of death.  
Terrified of crying, terrified of not.  
Terrified of speaking, of breathing, of itching or scratching, of **anything** at all that will draw anyone's dead, cruel eye towards him._

 _And so, from a small little corner on the front deck of the ship, his little legs ache and wobble and tears freeze on his cheeks, but he tries to make himself invisible._

 _Everything about his life now is one big unknown._  
 _And he hates that even more than being shunned as an unwanted child._

 _At least from that, he could dream about escaping._  
 _But this...  
_  
 _But this..._

 _He swallows uncertainly as the picture looms bigger and bigger in his field of vision with every inch closer that they get._  
 _And from there, young Eret looks at the iron horror- at the way the big chains as wide as his waist, wrap around the corners of enormous stone walls and crush the fortress down into the ground, cracked and broken slabs of ice cutting upward into the sky as if trapped to suffer there forever._

This is different.

This is...  
Hopeless.

* * *

They are mostly silent on their trek towards that hideous old iron fortress.  
Because what is there, really, to say?

So, instead of words, there's only the tension. There's only the discomfort.  
That odd, unsettling feeling of their hearts beating too loudly and giving sudden, uneven palpitations, lurching everywhere from their stomaches to their throats and back again in a nauseous feeling that makes them want to wretch in the snow every step of the way.

At least they know, from the bone-crushing grip of their hands, that they are both feeling the exact same thing.  
They try to take some comfort in that.

But then, all too soon, they arrive at the edge of the forest, at that long stretch of ice...

For a long moment, as that fortress hovers on the horizon, no less black or imperious or frightening than they remember, they can only stare at the horrid sight.

But then, all at once, it really does strike them that this could be their very last moment and slowly, very slowly, he looks at her and she looks at him...

And then the silence breaks into life and they're suddenly gasping and holding each other with all the ferocity, all the strength that they can muster- as if they're the only things holding each other up. Which, for the most part they are.

They hold each other, never wanting to let go.

"We're going to die, aren't we?" Althea whispers through chattering teeth.  
"Quite possibly." Eret says with an uneasy laugh that barely masks his own fear.

They squeeze each other for a moment more, and then, he pulls away to look at her.

"Althea…" he whispers pleadingly. "Don't go…"  
Then, he lets out a weak laugh and so does she. They're hopeless words, of course, but even still, they're both so glad to hear them.

They let out a shaky breath to ground themselves.  
And then, when they've calmed down a little, Eret becomes all seriousness, knowing he can't waste this time entirely on sweet nothings, no matter how much he wants to.

"Althea, don't hold back for me." he advises evenly. "Whatever you do, believe me, Drago is going to do a whole lot worse. So you go on and do what you have to do, no guilt. And don't you ever forget..." he pauses, taking her cheek in his palm. "...that I love you..."

"...I love you too." Althea whispers.  
But she doesn't know if that's enough and so, she says it again, "I love you Eret, Son of Eret. More than anything in the world."

Suddenly, a huffy croon sounds beside them and a little too late, Althea remembers the dragon who is blinking and quirking her head and trying however hopelessly to lighten the mood.

Althea laughs weakly, although she doesn't actually feel any better. And, in the end, it's mostly for the dragon's sake than her own when,  
"Except for Bloodbiter of course..." she amends jokingly.

The dragon snorts her discontent and Eret chuckles as he turns to the creature, too.

"You take good care of your rider for me, old girl. Alright?" he says.  
Bloodbiter croons mournfully as he pats her heavily on the side of her neck.  
Eret smiles. "I'll be alright. And, when i'm out again, i'll give you basket loads of fish, just you wait and see. That's a promise."

Althea smiles as Bloodbiter licks at his face and he laughs, and it's such a precious scene that all at once, the sadness comes back and she can't help but pull Eret in by his collar and press her mouth to his, her hand on the back of his neck, eyes shut tight for an eternity that still, passes much too quickly.

"...For luck." she whispers in the meagre space between them as she pulls away.

This time, he wraps an arm around her waist and kisses her.

"For luck..." he echoes.

Althea nods.

And then, they take one last moment to remember each other, this moment- to feel the cold on their cheeks and the warmth of each other's touch...  
And they part.

It's time.

"Alright." Eret breathes, rubbing his hands together. "Let's go do what we needs to be done, yeah?"

"Yeah." Althea agrees. She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders back and Eret so loves that look in her eye- like she is willing to go through anything...

He loves it so much and he's so caught up in looking at, in fact, that he almost misses it entirely when she says,  
"...I won't hold back, just like you said. So I hope it's true you've really prepared yourself for this, Eret..."

"Hm? Prepared myself for wha-?"

A hard punch cracks against his jaw.  
"Ow!…"

A hand reaches out and tousles his hair, smears the blood of a fresh cut on his lip across his face. Deft hands bind his wrists tightly and then, she ends it by pressing a kiss to his hands.

"I'm sorry!" she whispers. "Now, let's go."

* * *

When he first spots them, two distant figures hobbling clear across the empty frozen wastes, the overbearing presence that is the infamous dragon master, Drago Bludvist, instantly pauses on his way into the fortress from his ship.

Is that?...  
Could it be?...

A mirage? An illusion?  
Some sad irritation come back from life to haunt him?...

He takes a second look, narrowing hooded eyes as if he is...confused and his eyes are deceiving him.

But then, at last, the figures draw closer and when they stop a good cautious distance away, a glare on her face and blood smeared across his, Drago just grins that slow, slow grin and then he throws his head back and laughs uproariously with his entire body- a sight and a sound not unlike hot metal scraping against rocks that they've not missed a single bit and it chills their insides just to hear it.

Startled, the few armored men at Drago's side, none of whom Eret recognizes, exchange uneasy looks amongst themselves, but then, Drago Bludvist merely waves them away and they continue to walk, and he continues to laugh.

Because it **_is_** them. Together.  
Eret, Son of Eret, the most pathetic boy to ever cross his path.  
And along with him, that girl...  
That dragon rider with the dark hair- the one who he had thought would die off alone from either misery or guilt on some forgotten spit of land in the middle of nowhere with nothing and no one beside her...

Despite all his expectation, she is back.  
And oh, with such a delicious fury in her eyes that Drago just can't **_help_** but to laugh.

Breathlessly, and trapped under Drago's shadow, Althea waits for that laughter to die off so she can work up the courage to speak.

But it isn't easy.

There, the picture of all her very worst nightmares over the course of half a decade, is standing just before her.  
And Drago is...still Drago, yes.  
But he has been made new, too.

His false arm is gone now, lost to sea, and fresh scars mark his body all over.  
His hair is wilder, his eyes are frenzied.  
He is unkempt and feral and bloodshot and mad, but the worst of it is, is that...it's as if he doesn't care...

The years have not been kind to him and gods, Althea feels her midday meal churn in her stomach, at this new eerie sense of savagery that exudes every inch of Drago's form, and it makes her think, for the briefest second, that all of this has already gone wrong.

And yet...

He doesn't move to imprison them. Or kill them or harm them at all, and somewhere amidst all the nerves, Althea supposes she should find that odd, but for now, she's mostly focused on just gathering her bearings, on biting her tongue and making sure that when she opens her mouth, she doesn't just scream out in horror as her entire body wants to do.

She sucks in a deep, deep breath.  
But...it is Drago who speaks first.  
And, not even to her.

"So. You found your dragon rider after all." he rasps to Eret.

Eret simply lowers his head, submissive, in defeat.  
And even though Althea's heart repulses at the sight of something like this, happening in front of her again, altogether, it's...a fairly convincing act.

He's doing his part.  
She needs to do hers.

Althea's hand clenches in a fist and she knows that the next ten minutes will decide their life.  
So she forces her fear into anger and somehow, she scrounges up some crazy sense of the courage to look Drago dead in the eye.

" ** _I_ ** found ** _him_** actually." Althea snarls, blood pumping with the fear and adrenaline. "Hiding out in a little village called Berk."  
She shoves Eret to the ground between them, hard, and spits.

But all the while she can't stop thinking.  
 _Is this too much? Am I speaking very loud? Did that seem natural, spiteful, loathsome?..._

Across the way, Drago lifts a brow, amused.  
This, for him, is quite the unexpected development.

But then, that amusement merely turns into a composed and hooded grin, followed by a thoughtful, "So you did...And you brought him...here. To me."

It's not a question exactly.  
If anything, it's an odd, unsettling challenge. A test that Althea doesn't know quite how to pass.  
Or even fail.

For a long moment, she remains silent, carefully weighing the atmosphere, trying to discern some kind of meaning behind the chilling familiar slow curve of Drago's smirk, and her chest feels like it's being crushed in a death grip.

Gods, it's hard to breathe...  
Was it always this hard?...

Through a wave of dizziness, she understands nothing.

"Because...Because I have a proposition." she manages to say.

That, at least, seems to pique his interest.  
"Oh?"

She lets out a head-pouding breath and nods.  
"I forced the trapper to talk." Althea says, and she can no longer tell whether the wind stinging her cheeks is much too hot or much too cold. Waves of bleariness pass through her so quickly, it's hard to believe that anything in front of her is real. "And when he did, he mentioned something about a battle. A battle between you and Berk that didn't go well."

At the mention of that, anger flashes across Drago's face for a moment like thunder, and Althea barely suppresses a scream and wills herself not to flinch back.

But after a second, his face clears again, and he nods stiffly for her to continue.

Althea's palms are clammy and cold, but she does.  
"So...I'll work for you. You lost your precious alpha, but luckily, you won't need one anymore. So Berk has a Nightfury. Now, so will you."

As she waits for a response, her heart pounds too loudly in the icy, white silence.

 _Is that **my** heart beating? Is that **my** glare wavering? And why is it suddenly so damned **hot**?  
_  
She tries to stay calm.  
Calm and angry.

Drago scoffs then, but it seems cautiously...dare-she-say... ** _curious_**.

"...Your Nightfury. I remember. But, where is she, dragon rider? I don't see her." he challenges grandly. "Come. Show her to me if I am to believe you."

In response, Althea nearly growls, "She's hidden."  
 _Out of **your** reach, you monster.  
_ "...Unless you accept my deal."

Despite himself, Drago smirks.  
So she'd learned something from last time after all.

Smart.

But no matter.

"...I see. And do you expect me to just believe, dragon rider, that you would find this dragon trapper and return him to me? After all he has done?" he says. "You expect me to believe that you, of all people, wish to join me?"

The words are disbelieving, but even in her state, Althea can sense a distinctly wanting undertone beneath the inflection of his voice, trying to pull more honeyed promises from her lips.  
He _ **wants**_ it to be true.  
He _**wants**_ that dragon.  
His eyes are practically gleaming in search of it already.

She just needs to push a little bit further. And so,

"...Yes." Althea says, clenching her fists at even having to say the revolting words. "Because you and I...We have something in common, Drago."

Drago eyes her with patient glee and at that familiar expression, all of a sudden, each and every one of her pent up feelings pour forward into a wave of overlapping feeling, of desperate hopelessness and fear and a hundred other things she just can't control.

The best she can do is say the right words;  
Try to skew her coming completely unhinged into a play act at some kind of fury.

"We prize our power over our peace." Althea finds herself saying. "You see, I don't want reconciliation. I don't want a quick death for him and peace of mind for me. What I want," she sneers, pulling Eret by the scruff of his collar so close to her and she is now most definitely gasping and speaking and shaking all at once. "is for him to suffer. To suffer everything I have and more. I want you to break him...And when he's alone, when he's humiliated and starving and begging to die the way that I did-!.."  
She breaks off then as she's practically shouting the words.  
"...When he's broken...I want to be there to see it. When he dies, I want it to be my hand that kills him..." she whispers.

Even to Eret, it looks so much like madness.  
And for a second, as he gapes at her, he wonders if even **_she_** understands the hot tears sliding down her cheeks, and for a long moment there is nothing but dead silence.

It seems to stretch on forever.

But then, one sound, one laugh, brings them back to a stark cold reality- Drago's laugh, as he shakes his head, his unkempt mane of hair swaying heavily with his actions.

"Oh this is terrible." he chuckles. "Terrible and beautiful and...grand."

With a flourish of his heavy cape, he turns back towards his iron fortress, laughing as he goes.

But then, because he is none other than Drago Bludvist, because he is man who loves the pleasure in murder and power and rage and revenge, the delicious irony is much too tempting for him to resist.

He turns over his shoulder and grins at the rider, still marked forever by her despair.  
And then, he seals their fate with two slow words:

"I...accept."

* * *

 _Hope you enjoyed?..._  
 _Please do give me feedback if you can!_  
 _I know this chapter was my biggest disaster in the worldddd. It's just so, sdljfnskd. I don't know. It was hard to nail exactly what a reunion between these three would be like? UGH HELP. WHY DID I EVER DECIDE TO DO THIS?_


End file.
